


The Most Wonderful Time

by justanotherStonyfan



Series: Honey Honey [27]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, Bittersweet, Christmas, Crying, Developing Relationship, F/M, Family Feels, Gift Giving, Heavy Petting, Kissing, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Rimming, Rough Sex, Social Anxiety, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 17:25:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19706044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherStonyfan/pseuds/justanotherStonyfan
Summary: Everybody tears into their wrapping paper - actually, that’s not true. James’ whole family aside from Chip is, much like Steve, a family of pickers. Anthea, and Becca, and James all open their gifts by carefully peeling the tape back and removing the paper like sleeves.“Huh,” Steve says, and does the same because he always has with fancy paper.He and Buck used to wrap with newspaper if they could afford gifts at all. On the rare occasions they managed brown paper, Steve treated it like gold leaf. Call it a habit he’d never quite been able to break.





	1. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday - 20, 21, 22

**Author's Note:**

> James and Steve's first Christmas! Thanks to my braintwin and to the people who listen to me yelling on twitter!
> 
> Please let me know if you feel I've missed anything in the tags there!
> 
> And thank you Kyaraelf for saying something so politely when you noticed my glaring error!!

On Sunday the twentieth, when Steve gets back from Church, James is waiting for him.

He’s just sitting on the couch, obviously, but Steve left the fire on this morning, and James has gone from being half-awake and in bed to being wide awake and dressed in jeans, a Christmas sweater, and a Santa hat. Which…

Okay, he holds up a second sweater, come on.

“Really?” Steve says, taking off his shoes. “We’re doing this?”

“You said we could decorate!” James says, and Steve laughs. 

“I did,” he says. “You’re right. Us too, huh?”

It’ll be nice to do together, actually. The decorations are in storage at the back of his studio through in the back of the conversion. Except the advent wreath and candle - those have been out since the start of the month.

“How ‘bout I get ‘em after lunch?” he says. “I’m starved.”

James beams, holds the sweater out, and Steve takes it. 

James is wearing a Norwegian-ish sweater, which he’s procured from _somewhere_ , which has the patterning done suspiciously like Steve’s stealth uniform, with the star in a Selbu rose style. Until otherwise informed, Steve is blaming Wanda. Steve’s sweater, when he puts it on, is mainly blue just because of the length of his torso, although it’s red from collar to chest, and the colors meet over his breast with white patterning to separate them. 

It’s annoyingly patriotic, but even Steve can admit he looks better in red, white and blue than he does in the eye-meltingly bright forest green that most festive sweaters have managed to attain in recent years (except Sam’s. Sam’s is white accented in red. With a red yoke, red lines over his ribs, and obnoxious red cursive that reads “Kiss the CAP,” it makes an appearance every year and makes Sam look like Reverse Santa when he wears it, because Steve’s friends are just as dorky as he is - he chose them specially).

He makes stew and biscuits for lunch, because it's that kind of a day - makes the broth rich and thick, and the biscuits fluffy and gooey in places to the best of his ability - and then, after lunch, dutifully goes and fetches the Christmas decorations while James does something to a saucepan of wine (they're going to called it 'mulled' but Steve's not certain it's going to qualify technically). There's a lot of it, too, but it won't affect Steve, so he'll be able to keep an eye on James. 

The greenery goes everywhere, and it's always first - faux, of course, but still beautiful. He found the best stuff he could - it looks like real pine branches, and he's got pine-scented air-freshener for when they're done. He starts at the bottom of the banister, meaning to weave it all the way up, but James goes up the stairs ahead of him. 

"All the way?" he says, and Steve smiles, nods, and starts passing him the stuff. James weaves it up the banister and then Steve goes upstairs and weaves it through the rail on the balcony. There's some for the bookshelves and the mantle piece, some for the shelves and the tops of the cupboards. The lights are next - Steve changes some of the lampshades for festive ones, and James calls him extra, and then they weave warm-white, twinkly lights all the way throughout the greenery. It takes a little time, because all the sets are connected, and then Steve shows James the app on his phone that he can use to control them.

James cycles through red-white-and-green, ice-white-and-blue, and then tries neon-rainbow because he can.

"Awesome!" he says, and Steve says,

"So now _Christmas_ is the gay Christmas?" and James elbows him and sets the lights back to warm-white-and-twinkly. 

When they're done with the first of it, they move on to the littler things - the subtle stuff. There are baubles and hangings that go on hooks and nestle in branches. Steve has a set of candle bridge lights that sit on the mantle, and hundreds of little bits and pieces he's accrued since he first woke up in this century.

He sets up the pre-lit Christmas tree Natasha gave him. It's barely as tall as he is, but it's beautiful all the same, and he sets it in the corner of the main room, on a little table usually reserved for drinks or books, and then sets about moving his pictures.

"Where d'they go?" James asks as Steve takes the portraits of his mother and Peggy down off the wall, of Bucky and Jim and Gabe and Tim and Jaqcues and Phillips and Erskine and Monty and- All the little portraits, this time of year,

"Under the tree," he says softly.

Steve never gives himself gifts, so there's no need for anything else to go under the tree.

He has little wooden carvings from the year he worked with the boy scouts, all on strings, all desperately wonky, and all of them made with love. He has little baubles the size of a gumball bearing various locations, half gold and half glass, each with something location-specific inside - they're from Natasha and she says she picks them up wherever she goes, except that he's never seen them in gift shops anywhere and they all match suspiciously well. His favorite is the fulgurite from Iran. Every year, Tony buys him the Official White House Christmas Ornament (although he carefully skipped some in the mid-to-late twenty-teens) and Steve has special hooks for them where his shields usually live on the walls of his staircase. There are straw stars from the Catholic nuns in Italy, fake birds from the craftsmen from the same region as the Japanese diplomat he befriended (that look so real he once had a ten second panic about how to get a bird out of a warehouse before he remembered), blown glass from Venice, there's something from everywhere, mainly. Even little angels from Germany. Those had been hard to look at for a while. 

They all have their places, although some are a little less rigid than others ("put the straw stars everywhere," he says, "anywhere they'll fit.")

Once the small bits and pieces are finished, James takes a few of the stragglers over to the tree and places them strategically. Then he looks up.

"Y’ever decorate your ceiling?" he says. 

"Yeah," Steve answers. "I mean, no, not me - I usually get Clint to do it a little closer to Christmas, he's better in the rafters."

He goes around next and starts taking the pictures down off the walls, and James looks at him bemusedly. He leaves the poster up, but only because it has Bucky's handwriting on it. 

After he's taken his paintings and his photographs down, he takes them into the back, brings James with him.

"Some of these are mine," he says, pulling fabric-covered frames from a cupboard, "and I picked some up at markets, one or two were a gift. You know." 

He starts unwrapping them and carefully doesn't look at James' face when he does. 

"This goes where my landscape usually is," he says, pointing to his oil painting of the tree in Rockerfeller center. "You know, that one of New York that's all brown?"

James nods. 

"What year was this?" he asks, and Steve doesn't need to look up. 

"Tree was from 'thirty-seven," he says, "I painted it in 'sixteen."

James goes away with it, and comes back for the next.

One's a framed papercraft nativity, intricate and delicate, from Poland, made by old Poles who remembered him.

“That’s in the middle of the main room,” he says, and then looks at James. “Always.”

James nods. 

There are others, each with a place. Sketches drawn by his boys in his book that he got back from the Smithsonian. Pictures from people, cards from friends. Some are fabric hangings from various people and places, and he puts those up every year, too. 

He finds the salt-dough angel that’s gone gray and musty with age, but its new bright red ribbon means he can still put it on the tree.

“What’s that?” James asks when he brings it through, and he puts it on the tree and smiles at it.

“The museum thought it was rations,” he says, chuckling at the memory of seeing its label through anti-glare glass. “It’s a salt-dough angel. Bucky made it our first year in an apartment together. First Christmas after I lost my mother. I took it everywhere with me. Put it up in our tent in Europe. Nearly lost the damn thing when we packed up in Italy but yeah. It always made it back to my footlocker.”

There’s a painting of said apartment that goes up near the kitchen, which features a man sleeping on the couch, cap flopped over his face, and a tree-ish.

He sees James notice, sees James realize who it must be. James puts it up for him - it’s only perhaps the size of a sheet of printer paper, and the frame is simple, but he’d drawn it Christmas eve of the year Bucky’d been given a huge branch that had dropped off the tree the grocer’s had procured, a gift for his help in carrying the thing. Exhausted but happy, they’d stuck it in a bucket full of newspaper, gone to mass, and then come home. Bucky’d gone to sleep, and Steve had used a stub of a pencil and the last of his paper to preserve it. He painted it once he’d gotten his hands on some watercolors much later. Howard, he discovered, had kept it safe.

When all the decorations are up, all the lights connected, all the pictures in place, Steve looks around.

“I think we’re done, huh?” he says.

“Looks great,” James beams, and comes over for a kiss. “Wanna put on some music?”

Steve wraps his arms around James, feels his smile slip a little.

“I got playlists,” he says. “Tell me if you wanna add to ‘em - there’s some stuff I can’t listen to. I…I mean-”

“You mean it’s hard to listen to ‘cause you’ve seen some real shit,” James says, and then stands on his tiptoes for a kiss. “You got it.”

Steve blinks as he pulls away but eases up a moment later.

“Uh, also,” he says, and James turns to look at him.

“Yeah?” he says after a few moments, and Steve scrapes his teeth over his lower lip before he continues. 

“Also, those blue Christmas lights? The ones that make your eyes fuzzy from a distance?”

“Yeah?” James says again.

“I can’t handle those.”

James nods.

“Okay,” he says, and goes off to fetch them some wine. 

Steve blows out a breath as his preprepared explanation goes unsaid. Right. James doesn’t need to know a reason, he just needs to know it’s important.

“Hey,” he says, and James turns around again and looks at him, smiling.

“Yeah?” he chuckles.

“Thanks,” Steve says, and James rolls his eyes.

“For the barest minimum of human decency,” he says, and then bows. “A-you’re welcome.”

Steve raises one eyebrow at him.

“Hey,” James says, as though he’s only just thought of it, one hand making a finger gun. “Would you feed me peanuts if I was allergic to peanuts?”

“What?” Steve says. “No!” And then “Oh.”

“O-o-ohh,” James _sings,_ smiling as he shuffles backwards towards the kitchen. “Oh o-o-ohhh!”

“Ah, shaddup,” Steve says, smiling even as he feels a flush rising on his cheeks.

“I know you are but what am I!” James answers, and grabs a couple mugs from the cupboard.

***

It’s later, while dinner is cooking, that James is trying to make some kind of spiced hot chocolate, that Steve…

Well, it’s not a revelation given that he’s been thinking about it for a while, but it still kind of blindsides him with how right it feels. 

"Where's the nutmeg?" James asks, and something weird happens in Steve's brain - he can't pinpoint it.

Where's the nutmeg is such an innocuous question but it's an answer he wants James to know already.

"Top cupboard, honey," he says. "Second shelf, little glass bottle."

James goes for it, finds it, smiles as he holds it aloft.

"Ta-daa," he says, and Steve smiles. 

James should know where the nutmeg is. Steve wants James to know where the nutmeg is. 

He knows what he's getting James for Christmas - after the lamp and the jewelry and the leatherwork. He knows. But it’s right then that he wants to give James something early.

James makes the hot chocolates and is a little wibbly about it because they’ve each had a couple of mugs of hot spiced wine by now, and James is younger and narrower and less serum-enhanced than Steve is.

He’s steady enough, though.

“Food smells amaaaazing,” he groans as he turns around, and Steve’s not about to pretend that kind of noise does nothing to him, but any inclinations he have can wait until after dinner. 

He takes his hot chocolate, “thank you,” and makes sure there’s plenty of room for James on the couch so that they can snuggle up. James stretches out with him, back to Steve’s chest, and they lie that way for a while with the music on and the lights low.

~

It takes longer than it should to finish his drink, but he’s in a position to take as long as he wants, so why not?

It's dark outside by then, getting colder day by day, and it hasn't snowed yet but Steve thinks it will by New Year's. They've already put another quilt on the bed, and he's put a couple more blankets out over the backs of the couches, so that there's one to hand if they feel like it. 

Steve settles one arm around James' waist and presses his nose into James' hair. He gets a face full of fur from the Santa hat, but he doesn't mind. Frank Sinatra's singing Silent Night over the sound system, low and quiet - Steve can manage it in English. He can't stay dry-eyed with the German choral version, but that's why it's not on his playlist.

"I love you," he says quietly into the back of James' head. "Every time I worry, you surprise me. I ought to know better but I forget how wonderful you are."

"Good job I'm here to remind you," James says, but then sets his hand on Steve's over his stomach. "I love you too, you know. I know you've been through a lot. Like a _lot_ , but it doesn't make you difficult to love-"

Steve feels his skin sting as the blood rises to it.

"James," he says softly, he hasn't got a hand free to hide his blush - not that James can see it.

"-no, but it _doesn't_ ," James says. "And you know you can tell me anything as long as you want to tell me. I'll listen. But you don't _have_ to."

And Steve hears it abruptly in a different tone, in a different voice. 

_You don't have to._

"I love you," he says, and it's thinner then, he hears it. It's rough in his throat and his eyes sting this time. "I just want you to know that."

James shuffles, squirms, looks back over his shoulder at Steve.

"What?" he says. "What do you mean, what's wrong? Are you…" he swallows hard. "Are you sick? What is it?"

Steve shakes his head, can't quite smile.

"Nono," he says, "don’t fret, I'm fine, I promise. It's just…Christmas is." Difficult. Painful. Bittersweet. Poignant. A reminder of what he has and what he could have and what he doesn't have any longer. "Complicated."

James puts his hot chocolate down and then takes Steve's and puts his down too. He rolls completely over, so that he's lying between Steve's legs, face to face with him on the couch. His back will hurt if he stays like that for too long, bent backwards by the cradle of Steve's body.

"I love you, too," he says, curls his arms up on Steve's chest and cranes his neck for a kiss, which Steve gives happily.

Steve nods, runs his hands over James' head, Santa hat and everything. For a few moments, they lie like that and everything's fine, and then Steve remembers what time it is. 

"Hey," he says, "come on, time to do the rice."

"Alright Commander I-Can-Handle-My-Emotions," James says, "good talk."

Steve snorts, and James almost gets up but then doubles back for another kiss. He makes it deeper this time, slows it down once it's started, and Steve isn't aware of how much he wants it until it's happening, doesn't know how tight his fingers will be in James' shirt until he's holding on, or how welcome James' hand is on his head until it's there.

"Rice," James says when they part. 

"Yep," Steve says, but he's got his hands around James' torso and it's nice to smooth his palms along the warm sweater fabric.

"Rice cooker?" James says, and Steve frowns, nods.

 _"Tch,_ yeah?" he says, "I'm not breakin' out the pots and pans now. I gotta dice an onion - you want peas in?"

"Peas’re good," James nods, and then he pushes himself up - he could use Steve for leverage but he uses the couch instead - and stands up next to the couch. "I'll dice the onion."

Steve smiles at him, tucks a strand of hair behind his ear and settles his hand there, palm against his head, fingers at the nape of James' neck, so that he can rub his thumb over James' cheekbone. He leans forward and kisses James' forehead. Then he lets go, and they go to the kitchen - James to start on an onion, Steve to pull peas out of the freezer (which is totally justifiable, it's December. Where would he get good fresh peas this time of year? It irks him anyway).

~

“You’re not on duty for Christmas,” James says.

And he says it like a statement, because he already knows. And Steve freezes midway through clearing the table - he knows the next question James is going to ask, and panics internally, immediately.

“Uh,” he says, “uh,” and James’s head appears over the back of the couch. “Okay, wait,” he says, and James puts one arm on the back of the couch and looks at him.

Steve knows James does not look concerned, or irritated, or upset. Steve knows James is very good at giving him a minute when he needs one.

But, still- 

“Wa-wait, okay, no, wait a second-”

James is giving him a second, Steve knows he's the one doing this to himself.

“Steve,” James says, and Steve’s trying not to worry but James is going to ask him to stay with his family over Christmas and he _wants_ to, he _wants_ to-

Oh wow, he does want to. 

How 'bout that? 

“Uh,” he says again, and straightens up. “Okay, I’m not on duty for Christmas.”

James is getting up off the couch as he says this, and Steve’s about to tell him not to but James is already on his feet by the time he gets the breath in. (Even James' socks are festive - the little reindeer play 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' if you push the nose)

“Okay,” James says, smiling. “So what are your plans?"

And that's a question and a half. At Christmas, Steve has a routine. If he’s on duty, he goes to mass at midnight and warns Fr Mulcahy that he might have to leave if disaster strikes. It did once, back in twenty-one - they _all_ got pulled in for that one.

Last year, though, he missed it by a day - his turn of duty started on the twenty-sixth. He had Christmas at his conversion with Nat, with one or two others stopping by. Mass at midnight is his only real tradition now, except that he can take a walk afterward if he doesn’t have to get back.

The snow in seventeen and eighteen was ridiculous, but Steve took a walk out to the bridge and took a hip flask with him, had a drink for the people who weren’t there to drink. The whole world looks different when it snows and, though things are looking up weather-wise in general, he’s still hoping for a little. It’s strange to think of things the way they used to be, but he can’t help it.

Brooklyn winters were hard, so hard, when he was young. But, like everything else he left behind, part of him still misses it.

 _This_ year, his turn on duty doesn’t start until five in the evening on January first. Duty-wise, it’ll be the best one since twenty-three, and he won’t get another one like it until the crossover from twenty-eight to twenty-nine, when he’s off from the twenty-second and doesn’t need to be back until the fourth (or fifth if he pushes it). He’s already making plans about it - tentatively, of course, but still. 

But the thing is, this year he has no clue about what to do.

James has a family. Steve has the Avengers. He has midnight mass (at the church he shares with James' family) and nothing planned except the usual. Take a walk, have a drink, enjoy the streets being empty and feel bittersweet for a while. 

But Steve knows James wants to ask him for Christmas at his family’s house, and has been panicking internally about it for a while now (and, more recently, panicking externally). But he won't get anywhere hesitating, so he does the only thing he can really think of by way of doing something about it.

“Okay,” he says, and plants one hand on his hip. “What are we doing about Christmas?”

James’ eyebrows go up about halfway to the brim of his Santa hat.

“What are we doing?” he says.

And Steve takes a sip from his hot chocolate.

“’Cause I figure you’ve either got plans or you wanna make plans. Or…Uh, did you just wanna stay here with me?”

“My mother,” James says, moving into Steve's personal space. “I was gonna ask - do you want to stay with us for Christmas?”

Steve draws a long, slow breath. 

"Your mother?" Steve says, and James nods.

"Yeah, she's happy for you to stay. They all are. But there's going to be family - potentially a baby, although probably not, travel's weird. My aunt and uncle, my parents, my sister-"

"Well," Steve says, slings his arms around James' waist. "I like your _sister_ -"

James laughs.

"Asshole," he says. "My Aunt and Uncle aren’t comin’ ‘til after Christmas a bit but. Yeah. You don't have to come."

"I want to come," Steve says, and he puts his head down against James' head, closes his eyes. James uses his shampoo and it's incredibly sweet of him but it also means James has no signature scent that Steve can breathe in. Maybe he'll buy him something fancy for Christmas. "I want to come."

"I dunno if we can both be in my bed," James says, and Steve's about to sort of…acknowledge whatever house rules his parents must have in place when James says, "like, my mom gets I'm an adult but we literally might not both fit in the bed."

Steve nods.

"Sure," he says. "I'll stay - what am I on, the couch?"

"No!" James says. "Oh my God, no, you'll take my bed, I'll take the couch."

"The couch?" Steve says. _"You_ can't take the couch, you'll-"

"You were just about to take the couch!"

"It's your house!"

"The couch is like five feet long, you're like eight feet tall-"

"I'm," Steve says, and then he laughs his way through 'six-two,' covers his mouth with one hand.

"Aw, you coverin' that pretty smile again," James says, grinning up at him. "No. You can take the bed and your little feet can stick out the end-"

"James-"

"-Okay, your big feet, and then I'll take the couch and you get some privacy, 'cause I know your SIC gets a little Rin Tin Tin first thing in the morning."

"What?" Steve says. "A little _what_?"

"You know," James says, and then starts wiggling enthusiastically in Steve's embrace. " 'Where is it, boy? Show me, go get it-!' "

Steve can't even figure out what to say in response to that. He just looks at James, aghast. 

"Where the fuck," he says, and James doubles over, faceplants in Steve's chest and laughs it out.

Steve puts one hand on the back of James' head and looks around his decorated home, smiles as James' shoulders quake. It's nice. James' idea of funny is a little out there but it's nice.

"Hey hey," Steve says and, when James lifts his head, Steve tucks his fingers under James' chin, kisses him - James is still smiling so he gets a lot of teeth. "If you want me to stay, I want to stay. And I'll take your bed. And I'll make you coffee in the morning."

"And maybe we can sneak in a blowjob when nobody's looking?" James says.

Steve snorts. 

"Maybe," he says. "If you think you can be quiet for long enough."

"Oh," James says loudly, eyebrows turning up in the middle, tipping his head back in a not-inaccurate imitation of Steve mid-coitus. "Oh, oh-"

Steve jabs him in the side a little and then, when James yelps and squirms, tips him backwards and kisses him.

"Menace," he says, nose to nose. "Hooligan. Troublemaker. Delinquent."

James laughs, and his hat falls off.

"Hmm, hmm, you love me anyway," he says.

"You're damn right I do," Steve growls, and then he straightens them up again, jabs James lightly again for good measure.

James retrieves his hat from the floor - Steve gooses him when he does and James skitters sideways, laughing - and then turns around to go back to the couch.

"What day are we headin' over?" Steve says, and James looks back at him, shrugs one shoulder, still beaming. 

"Christmas Eve eve?" he says.

Steve nods, doesn't even need to think about it - he's free now until Friday the first at five in the evening.

"Yeah," he says. "That'll work."

When Steve’s finished clearing the table, and James has texted his mother, Steve goes back into his studio and finds something he’s had for a month or so. It’s small. Very unobtrusive.

When he comes back, James has another mug of wine for the two of them, and is back on the couch.

“Come cuddle,” he says. “We can do the dishes after, I want-” he wiggles his shoulders “-squishin’.”

Steve chuckles softly.

“I can do that,” he says, and he flips off a couple of the lamps, heads on over.

James moves around as he gets on the couch so they can get how they were before, and then James settles back into Steve’s body with a sigh. 

“Hmm, safe,” he says softly, and the pride that bubbles up in the middle of Steve’s chest is both surprising and ridiculous.

He doesn’t say anything, but he does smile pretty widely into his mug.

James settles his head back against Steve’s shoulder and squints up at the roof.

“I love this place,” James says. 

Steve wets his lips, puts his mug down on the floor.

“Yeah?” he says, and tries not to sound too hopeful. 

“Yeah,” James says. “All your lights and the wood and the brick.”

"Yeah, well, I love your place," Steve says softly, into James' temple, tightens his arm to squeeze James closer. "All those little lights all over the place, those scent things, the little fake succulents. Those fabric throws and the stuff you made all on the walls. I love your place."

James puts his mug down too and pushes up a little, so his head is right next to Steve’s, so all he has to do is turn his head on Steve’s shoulder to see most of his face. His skin is red over his cheeks from the alcohol, warm from the sweater, and his eyes sparkle where the tree lights are reflected in them.

"Your place is nicer," he says, and Steve laughs softly.

"It's subjective," he says. "But my point is, there's lots of places where little lights could go, you know? Those little fake succulents you've got, they're really sweet - how would you feel about doin' some of that here, huh?"

"Pft," James says. "Lights and succulents and cushions and fabric an’ all'a that?" He's smiling, tipsy, comfortable. 

"Yeah," Steve nods, can't take his eyes off him. "All'a that."

"This is great," James says, snickering as he turns his head against Steve's mouth - Steve noses his hair for a moment or two. "You want me to give your place a makeover."

Steve wets his lips while James chuckles, finds his breath doesn't come as easy. He squeezes James closer again, just for a moment, and closes his eyes as he breathes his shampoo in James’ hair. 

"Our place," he says.

James goes very still for a long moment, and then shifts forward, twists, so he can look up at Steve.

His mouth is open and his eyes are wide and he looks like he might cry. Steve feels a little like that himself. 

Steve holds up the little microchip key he fetched from his studio.

"Whaddya say?" Steve asks, and James' eyes crinkle at the corner, the bridge of his nose wrinkles. 

"Oh my god," he says, grin wide and bright, and he pushes up, wraps his arms around Steve's neck. "Are you serious? Oh my God, yeah, I'd love to." He pulls back, bites his lip, searches Steve's face, shakes his head. "I would love to. I’d _love_ \- I love you, I love you so much, Steve-"

Steve laughs as James runs his fingers through his hair - goosebumps travel in the wake of his fingers, arousal follows shortly behind

And so Steve kisses back when James kisses him, grasps at James’ shoulders when James moves against him, and follows James’ lead when he makes his intentions clear. 

The kitchen can wait.

***

On Monday, they spend the day lounging around. They drink more wine, listen to more music, kiss and touch and laugh, Steve takes photographs, does a little sketching. James is busy on the laptop with a coding thing he’s in the middle of, and they descend into the comfortable semi-silence of a warm, warmly-lit, pine-scented room, together.

Steve makes cinnamon hot chocolate and warm bacon sandwiches for lunch on soft, white, homemade bread, and so it’s mid-afternoon before either of them really speaks. 

"I don't know what we should take," Steve says. "What do your parents drink?"

James stops humming along to 'Winter Wonderland' abruptly, in the middle of twisting faux-greenery around a wire loop on the other side of the table. Steve has a loop, too, and the table's strewn with battery-powered light strands and little trinkets that will go on the wreaths once they're finished. 

"What?" James says, and Steve snorts so hard he almost gets a chocolate raisin up his nose. 

He swallows his mouthful of Festive Fruit Mix instead, has another mouthful of spiced wine to wash it down.

"I said what do we take to your parents?" Steve answers. "Also, shit, what do I get for your-"

"Relax," James says. "We're getting Becca some DVDs and like a poster, and I found her this neat little Krethan pendant that glows in the dark-"

"Krethan?"

"-and my mom loves cats so I bought her a diary for next year with cats on it - Krisis and Ethan from ~~super~~ **human** \- and a vase she wanted ‘cause it waters the flowers for you, and then my dad is really easy to buy for 'cause he hates surprises, so he has a wishlist online. We're getting him a ceramic frying pan and a book about…oh. Uh, you actually. Kinda."

"We?" Steve says. "Come on, I haven't-"

"My mom is getting gifts for the extendeds, and _I'm_ totally signing _those_ labels, so you're totally signing _my_ labels."

Steve sighs though his nose, plants his elbow on the table and uses his arm to prop his head on his hand.

"Yessir," he says, and James nods.

"Damn straight," he says.

"No, not a bit," Steve answers, and slides his toes up James' leg.

James laughs, scrunches his eyes up.

"That's the worst," he says. "You're the worst."

"I'm terrible," Steve answers. "What are we taking to you parents-"

"I just told you-"

"No! I mean like I can't show up on her doorstep with a casserole, she'll have dinner plans! I can't show up with dessert 'cause what if she's makin' dessert?" 

"You mean like rockin' up with a bunch'a flowers and a bottle'a wine?"

"Yeah!" Steve says. 

"Nah," James answers. "They don't drink wine. And Matilda will literally eat any plant in the house, so that's a no."

Steve sighs.

He winds faux greenery for a couple of seconds, thinks about the types of things he can take. A card, obviously, but he can't take decorations because he doesn't know how much shelf/wall/whatever space they have, or what their color-scheme is. He doesn't know if they're into games, and wouldn't know where to get one fast enough so close to Christmas anyway. Pack of cards maybe? No, that's terrible. A film? No, nono, he'd never please everyone with one film.

"Cookies!" he realizes suddenly, and James jumps visibly. "Sorry, honey-" James laughs instead, so they're probably fine. "I can make cookies! I'm so dumb, how come I didn't think of that before?"

" 'Cause I'm the brains of the outfit," James says. "What kind of cookies?"

Steve sits back in his chair and thinks about it. He goes through his internal recipe book and tries to categorize by 'Christmas.'

"I dunno," he says. "I could do crinkle - there's a red velvet that's nice, a double chocolate, I have a _lemon_ …Brownie cookies are good, there's always-"

"Can you," James says, "just do like. Chocolate chip?"

Steve looks at him, cocks his head. 

"Yeah?" he says. "I mean, I can - just vanilla dough with chocolate?"

James nods.

"Yeah," he says. "They're my favorite really."

Steve chuckles and sits forward.

"Right," he says, "so I'm making _you_ cookies?"

"That's so nice of you!" James says, pressing his hand to his chest. "you don't have to aw, I accept, I'll take three dozen-"

But then Steve's brain catches up to him.

"Hey," he says, "hey, wait, there's that thing - I've got those, they're stars, they go boop boop boop-" he shows James with his hands, big shape, medium shape, little shape "-cookie tree!"

James blinks, and then his face opens up, surprise, delight.

"I've seen those!" he says. "We can dye 'em red white and-"

"If you finish that sentence," Steve says, pointing at him over the table, "you will be eating the cookie cutters."

~

The dough is easy and, because it's James, Steve makes half of it double chocolate, and then a second batch that's all vanilla and chocolate chip.

"How many are you makin?" James says, and Steve thunks the all-vanilla dough down in front of James.

 _"We_ are making two trees," he says. "Seven different sized cutters, okay, make two of each."

"Okay?" James says, as Steve hands him a rolling pin. 

And then Steve starts dusting his worksurface with cocoa powder, passes the confectioner's sugar to James.

"Try and get 'em all the same thickness," he says, and James nods.

"Okay."

And they start rolling out the dough. Steve starts with his double chocolate - cocoa in the flour, white chips in the dough. James has his vanilla, Steve has his chocolate, and it's not long before the countertop's covered with stars of varying sizes. When James is done with his, Steve rolls out his own vanilla and makes one of each size in that, too.

"See?" he says. "One'll alternate, one'll be plain."

James nods.

"Cool," he says. 

And then they go in the oven.

~

There's something really comforting about filling a living space with the smell of warm dough and chocolate, and Steve smiles as the scent from the coffee maker wafts over, too.

"Smells like a Starbucks in here," James says, grinning, and Steve bobs his eyebrows.

"Good, huh?" he says. "If I make a grilled cheese and bang on some cutlery we can pretend to be surrounded by _other_ pretentious hipster types-"

"Hey!" James squawks. "Takes one to know one, Mister."

"Commander."

"Whatever."

Steve kisses him. 

“How do you know it wasn’t me I was talking about?”

James nods.

“Yeah, I’ll give you that one,” he says. 

"Got like five minutes," he says. "Then coffee and cookies!"

James perks up even more.

"Cookies?" he says, head on one side like an excited labrador. “Us cookies?”

"Yeah?" Steve says as he walks backwards to the kitchen with his arms held out, fully aware James has the wrong end of the stick, because Steve's the one who gave it to him in the first place. "What'd you, think we were gonna take 'em all to your parents'?"

"Awesome," James says. "Hey, can we have mochas instead?"

Steve thinks about it for a second. 

"Cinnamon orange mochas?" he says, and James looks like it’s Christmas already. "Sure."

~

The cookie trees (or, in one case, what remains of a cookie tree) are easy to put together. Steve puts a little water in some confectioner's sugar and makes it thick enough that he can use it like glue to stack the cookies without them falling off each other - they're not perfect, but they mainly sit straight. 

James makes a little tree out of his stars, a mini tree. There are still about nine cookies left but that means that they've eaten five, which is not ideal.

"Do you even know the calorie count on these?" James asks, halfway through another one.

"No," Steve answers. "Do you want to know?"

James snorts.

"No?"

~

By mid-afternoon, they've already taken time out for sex - on the couch in the reading section, warm from the fire. They don't even get all the way undressed, they don't have enough patience for that - instead, they get half undressed and ruck up their clothes and grind together for a long, long while, necking while their hands roam. After that, Steve becomes vaguely aware that he's wearing James' Santa hat somehow, and he's also about to fall asleep. 

"Need anythin'?" he mumbles, and James - who is curled up against Steve's side, on the end of the couch closest to the fire where he should be (because it's cold and Steve runs hot so Steve doesn't need it), face mashed up against Steve's bare chest, cheek on one of his tags (although the sweater is still on the other half of Steve's chest), pushes a little closer, shifts his leg a little more over Steve's.

"Mmmno," James mumbles. 

Steve slides his hand down James' back to keep him a little closer.

"Mmm," he says. 

And it's easy, really, to fall asleep when the room is so warm and James is so close. 

~

"Friday's Christmas," James says as he pushes up - he groans because they're both a little stiff. 

"Yeah," Steve says, and he stretches his arms up over his head. "So Thursday…Wednesday they want us there, right?"

"Right," James says, and he covers his mouth with a hand as he yawns.

Steve sits up too, puts James' hat back on his head. 

"So tomorrow's our last day here this year," Steve says. "Right?"

James looks up, around the place, then looks over his shoulder at Steve.

"Right," he says. 

"We should pack tonight," Steve tells him. "That way tomorrow's free for, you know. Whatever we wanna do."

James laughs.

"Whatever will we think of?" he says, and Steve rolls one shoulder in a shrug, leans forward and cranes his neck for a brief kiss.

"I'm sure we'll think of something," he says. 

~

They'll take a cab, because overnight bags are all well and good when they're moving from the tower to the conversion - one place they live to another place they live - but, when they know they're going to be away from their general conveniences for a week? That takes a little more planning. 

"I do want the bike," Steve says. "But like…it's not like your parents live in Maui, I can always come get it."

"Why do you want the bike?" James says, folding underwear into his suitcase.

"Freedom," Steve says, stirringly, "the wind in my hair, James," he holds a hand out to draw an imaginary horizon, "the ability to go grab donuts whenever I so desire."

"Pft, it's 2026, can't you get donuts on takeout?"

"Probably."

James has already packed most of his things, Steve's seen. They can share a loofah for the next day and a half, and toothbrushes can go in top pockets day-of if they have to, no problem.

"Okay, tech in the hardshell," James says pointing at it, "clothes in the suitcase-"

"Toiletries in the toiletries bag, extra cables -- presents?" Steve says, and James looks at him.

"Would you sign my Dad's book?"

Steve narrows his eyes a little.

"Uh," he says. "I mean, I will if you want but how accurate is it?"

"Oh, it's Chester Philips' book," James says. 

"Oh, _'A Memoir'_?" because if any man in history was going to name his memoirs 'A Memoir' it was Chester Philips. "I read that, yeah, that's fine. Not sure he'd want me to sign it, though."

James looks at him.

"Why?" he says, and Steve laughs.

"Okay," he says, "so you haven't read it."

He regales James with stories while they finish packing, and then while they wrap James' gifts to his family. 

"So what you're telling me is you've been trying to give authority figures aneurysms since 1942?"

"Naw, I learned to walk in 1919, so…?" 

James laughs.

Steve has already wrapped James' gifts. One is something he knows he wants, another is something he thinks he'll like, and the third is following a theme, but there's the electronic key and the offer to move in, and he…

"Oh," he says. 

"What?" James asks, and Steve cocks his head.

"Okay so, I had three things for you but I just realized the main one is not parent-appropriate."

James laughs.

"Okay," he says. "So?"

"So do you want it now or when we get back?" Steve says, and James looks at him, looks him up and down.

"After," he says, smiling. "I bet it's worth waiting for."

Steve ducks his head when he feels his cheeks warm, but laughs anyway.

"Is there anything you can think of that we'll need that I-" and then, as he's running his mental causal clothes/good clothes/running clothes list, he realizes. "Pajamas," he says. "We're gonna need pajamas."

James looks at him, wide-eyed, then looks to one side, clearly thinking. 

"Okay so the next question becomes, where did we put the pajamas?" 

And he goes to the cupboards to start hunting for them. Steve's are probably in the under-bed storage. In fact, yeah, he knows they are, and he's almost certain James' are with them, unless James has moved them. 

"Under the bed, honey," he says, and James says, 

"Ah," and goes to get them.

But Steve's still hearing, _where did we put the pajamas?_ in his head, and he can't help smiling. He's only now asked James to move in but the truth is, James has been an inseparable part of Steve's life for a while now. 

That's exactly how he likes it.

~

For the evening meal, Steve does bacon mac’n’cheese, with provolone, mozarella and cheddar, caramelized onions, paprika and garlic to season, and a whole bunch of herbs and breadcrumbs on top, and it is to _die_ for.

Hot and filling and absolutely delicious, James doesn’t want to think about his waistline, and so he doesn’t. Steve has mince pies and boozy cream for dessert - “Did you make these?” “I didn’t _not_ make them” - and then they go back to the couch.

“It’s terrible,” James says. “I’m not this guy. You know? I’m that person who’s awake when they’re awake, and then I get up and stuff.”

“Mmm, me too,” Steve says into the back of his neck. “I go runnin’, I go to the gym…or I. You know.”

“You work out.”

“I work out.”

Steve is half-asleep.

“It’s you,” James says. “You’ve done this to me. I never wanted to spend hours on the couch doing nothing at all before I met you.”

“Mmm, sorry,” Steve says. 

James chuckles.

“No you’re not,” he says.

Steve shifts a little, heaves a sigh.

“Nah,” he says.

***

When James wakes on Tuesday morning, he opens his eyes to a room that’s bright with winter sunlight, with all the remaining shadows filled with little warm-white lights and greenery.

“Mhh,” he says, and then Steve’s hand settles on his stomach, strokes up his chest. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Steve says, sounding smug already, and then he starts kissing James’ throat, slowly, open-mouthed, making little noises as he does, and James tips his head back as he tries to figure out what’s going on.

“Mmh!” he says, and Steve chuckles softly, pushes the sheets down a little ways and then gets his hand beneath them. 

The air in the conversion is cool just by from the weather, but Steve’s fingers are hot and strong and, out of the two, James is well aware of what’s making him shiver.

~

After that, James goes to get cleaned up, brushes his teeth, and then it’s the balcony, and James holds onto the rail with both hands while Steve holds his shoulders from behind and drives into him, and neither of them say much but there isn’t really much to say like this.

The rail is-

James laughs.

“Huh?” Steve says, working hard.

“I just,” James says, “thought of,” he has to wait a few thrusts to get his breath back enough, “ha, the rail,” he says, “I’m gettin’ railed-”

“God,” Steve says, but James can hear the smile in his voice over the clatter of his tags, and James doesn’t have much breath for anything after that.

~

The shower they take after that is slower. Well, it’s more like at a total stop, actually - two rounds in a half hour is enough to mean that James needs a break. They wash each other, because of course they do, and James’ legs are a little shaky but Steve bends down so James can wash his hair and the new beard growth. Steve washes James, too, his big hands careful, his huge frame like a shield against the water, and then they settle on the floor against the shower wall - James in Steve’s lap - and make out under spray that Steve turns broader, softer, like rainfall instead of fire hoses.

After that, Steve shaves naked at the sink, straight razor in hand, strop hanging from the faucet, and James touches himself while he watches Steve work, though he’ll need a little longer to get anywhere with it.

Steve doesn’t catch himself with the razor, his hands steady and sure, and he looks at James.

“One day I’m gonna do this to you,” he says, “if you’ll let me.”

James bites his lip and nods.

“One day,” he says, filing it away. 

~

After that they have brunch. 

If they didn’t have brunch after that, James would pass out or something. They have a full English, and then Steve says,

“Let’s make it continental,” and breaks out the pastries and the compote and the fillings and…

“I _know_ you didn’t make these,” James says, picking up a second croissant, because they’re rich and flaky in the best way, and there’s almond paste in some of them, and they’re _warm_.

“Shh, giving away my secrets,” Steve says. “Put them in the oven for five minutes before I serve them? Me? How dare you.”

“Mmmh,” James says, and he puts apricot conserve on the next one because the only thing better than almond is apricot and almond, “my compliments to the chef.”

“I’ll be sure to pass it along,” Steve says, and he’s smiling that big, soft smile he reserves for when he’s thinking mushy things. 

“Love you,” James says through his mouthful.

“Mm, you too,” Steve nods.

James points at his mug.

“I was talking to the hot chocolate.”

“Oh sure,” Steve says. “Me too.”

It starts snowing around then - neither of them’s sure exactly when, but Steve turns his head sharply, sensing movement, and then smiles.

“Look,” he says. 

“Ugh, snow,” James answers, and Steve laughs, hooks his fingers over James’ where James’ hand rests on the table.

“Aw, I don’t know,” he says softly. “Cold ain’t so bad with two.”

~

After brunch, Steve disappears upstairs for ten minutes, and he comes downstairs in his bathrobe.

“What next?” he says, pulling lube and condoms from the pockets, and James wets his lips. 

“Tree?” he says, and Steve looks at it. 

“I’ll give you five minutes to turn all the pictures around first, how ‘bout that?”

James snorts what’s left of his hot chocolate and then laughs.

“Oh god,” he says, “sorry!”

He does as he’s asked.

Eventually, not long after they’ve started up again, Steve says,

“You’re keepin’ the Santa hat, huh?”

And James just grins.

Later, he begrudgingly thanks Natasha Romanov in his head for buying Steve a tree that doesn’t shed needles. Then again, with the way Steve sounds where he’s lying flat on his back and writhing on the floor while James fucks into him, James isn’t convinced Steve would notice even if it did.

~

They fuck in one of the armchairs, with James over Steve like they did at the Waldorf, and then they take a long, long rest on the couch, tangled up like Steve’s grown fond of them doing. Steve wraps them in a blanket and they just touch underneath it, stroking hands and tangled legs, quiet words between them.

Until Steve says,

“Wanna fuck in front of the fireplace?” 

And James couldn’t think of a better plan.

“On the faux fur?” he says. “Like every sexy fantasy ever? Fuck yes, I do, can we turn all the lights down, too?”

Steve laughs, glances at the windows where the evening’s turning to night already, so early in the day. It’s barely four.

“Sure,” he says. “Why not?”

And so they make love in the light of the fireplace, on the soft, faux fur rug, murmuring and holding tight, faces close, bodies closer, and they lie in silent stillness afterward, warm and safe and happy in the dark.


	2. Wednesday the 23rd

Steve’s seen James’ house before but under different circumstances and, when they pull up in the cab, Steve pays and they get out, with their bags - James is dressed in the cool gray flappy-lapel overcoat Steve bought him, and the shemagh, and the hoodie.

He looks good.

Steve’s stuck to a black overcoat and his standard semi-formal getup - it’s the shirt, tie and v-neck sweater thing that works so well, as well as slacks, and he kept the beard he woke up with. He darkened it a little, too, just to throw anyone off. As though his gray temples and entire physical presence weren’t obvious - but hey, it works on Sundays!

James hurries up the path, crunching up the mostly untrodden snow, and Steve reaches him at the front door, on which is hanging a lovely wreath made of pine branches and dried fruit. Before James rings the doorbell (which he says he’s going to do out of politeness, because he still has a key) Steve grabs James’ coat sleeve between two knuckles and tugs, leans down when James looks at him in question, and kisses him softly, just a chaste little thing because they’re outside, and because it’s James’ parents’ house, and because he’s not going to get to kiss James or touch James, or do anything with James that’s anything more than adorably romantic, for a week.

The front door opens as they break apart, and Steve manages to (he hopes) convincingly turn his smile on Mrs Barnes - Mrs Barnes, Jesus - as she greets them.

“Hey honey, I saw you comin’ up the path!” she says, and then she sort of falters a little. “Huh-iii, uh-”

“Steve,” Steve says, and holds out his tupperware box with the cookie tree in it.

“Oh,” she says. “Steve,” and then she smiles and takes it. “Thank- _Oh_ , wow, okay, did you-”

“Uh, James and I did, yeah,” he says, feels his smile slip a little.

“It’s beautiful!” and then backs into the house, at which point James follows. “Chip! Look what James and St- uh-Steve brought!”

“Huh?” Chip’s voice answers, and James leads them both through into the little bit of hallway after the porch. 

Steve starts taking off his shoes. James doesn’t bother and then gets scolded by his mother approximately three seconds later, so James takes his shoes off too. 

Steve pulls their slippers out of one of his bags, and passes James’ to him, then puts his own on. His are dark blue because things for men come in varying shades of black, blue and brown and he liked blue better than black and brown. James’ are black because black goes with everything.

“Want me to take our stuff upstairs?” James asks, and Steve shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “Come show me, I’ll carry. Uh, if that’s-?” he says as he leans backwards to see Mrs- James’ mom.

“Oh sure!” James’ mom nods. “That’s great, I’ll make coffee.”

“Oh, God, that sounds great,” he says

He is turning in to Clint, wow okay.

James leads him up the staircase towards his room, the rail wound with green tinsel that’s dotted with red ‘berry’ lights, and then seems to realize something.

“You’ve never been up here before,” he says, “right?”

Steve nods, stopping on the top step because James’ door is the first on the left. 

“It’s like,” James says, and then he shrugs as he pushes the door open. “Well, I mean.”

And Steve sees what he means a moment later. James’ room is much like his apartment. It’s dark because there’s wooden paneling that stretches from the floor to about halfway up the wall, though the walls themselves are a brighter mint green, and the molding is white while the floor is hardwood planking. There are two windows - one on the wall to Steve’s left, the front of the house, and one on the wall opposite the door, the side of the house. The head of the bed is up against the wall on the right, and the closet door is on the same wall just past it. There’s a bookcase in the near corner of the front window, a desk against the same wall as the window, to the left, and a closet door against the same wall as the bed, on the other side of the bed than Steve stands. There’s a chest of drawers right next to him, too, to his left, although it takes him a minute to notice it because he’s looking at the rest of the room.

But every shelf and nook and surface has little bits and pieces of James’ life just like his apartment does - there’s a little stuffed bear maybe three inches tall wearing a mortarboard, holding a little diploma, on a stand that says _‘Graduated!_ , a little mug shaped like a jack-o-lantern, a little lantern full of those battery powered little lights. There’s a net canopy over this bed - just a hoop with a net over it suspended from a ceiling hook - with lights that are wrapped around it and the fabric tucked back behind the headboard. 

There’s a basket full of stuffed animals and cushions of different colors, a big rug on the floor. There’s a vase full of pens on the desk, a microscope in one cubbyhole, a plasma ball in another.

The room is full of the things that make it James’ room, all the kinds of things that make his apartment his apartment.

“So,” James says.

There’s a big dark patch on the wall about the size of, oh, say, a particular poster, pictures hung on the walls - photographs stuck to the paint with tape.

“Y’know, I think I want a canopy in the conversion,” he says, looking around, and James mouth opens a little, his eyebrows go up.

“Oh,” he laughs, looks down at his feet. “Well.”

“Think about it,” Steve says, “about what type you’d like.”

James can’t hide his smile. 

“So, uh, all the drawers are empty,” James says, and he points to the chest of drawers. “If you wanna, uh. Yeah.”

Steve nods. 

“Great,” he says. “So about this couch-”

“No,” James says. “You won’t fit on the couch. Plus Matilda.”

“What about her?” Steve says, and James rolls his eyes.

“She sees people on the couch as free real estate,” he says. “And she likes to walk on your balls a lot.”

Steve snorts a laugh because he can’t help it. 

“Right?” he says. “Okay.”

He looks at the bed - it’s not quite a queen but it’s more than a single, although not by much. Not by much _at all_.

“I could take the floor,” he says. “Let me take the floor-”

“Take the bed,” James says. “I like the couch anyway, I get to go to sleep in the room with the tree.”

Steve lifts his head, nods slowly as he pushes the door to behind them. 

“Ahh,” he says. “I see.” He slings his arms around James’ waist. “Waitin’ for Santa, huh?”

“Somethin’ like that,” James says, and Steve ducks his head and kisses him softly.

They can, at least, be themselves in here. He’s gonna have to rein it in around James’ parents, though.

“We’ve had this discussion,” James says when they part. “Take the bed. See how it is - I know how you get. If it’s too soft, you can pick somewhere else tomorrow night. Okay?”

Steve nods, kisses him again.

“Sure,” he says. 

James presses his face to Steve’s chest for a moment, and then pulls back.

“So the drawers are empty, you can put your stuff in there.”

Steve nods. 

“Okay,” he says. “Gifts in the bottom drawer, no peeking.”

James laughs as he pulls away.

“Sure,” he says. “You take as long as you need, come downstairs when you’re ready.”

And it’s strange, Steve thinks. It’s strange to be the nervous one, strange to be the one who needs to take a minute. But he is.

“Hey,” he says, before James leaves, and James turns back, eyebrows raised. “I love you.”

James beams at him.

“Yeah, I love you too,” he says.

And then he closes the door.

 _“Ooooh!”_ Becca’s voice says, muffled through the door and quite possibly another wall, Steve’s not sure. _“You loooove him!”_

Steve guffaws before he can stop himself, and then Becca says.

_“Oh shit, super-ears!”_

He can hear James’ palms hitting his skin as he covers his face with his hands, too.

~

Matilda, when James goes into the living room, is sniffing the Christmas tree, because of course she is. James pauses to say hello and then stands up again.

“Mom?” James says, but it’s his dad he finds when he goes into the kitchen. “Oh,” he says. “Hey, Dad.”

His dad is busy chopping vegetables, and gives him a smile when he comes in.

“Hi,” he says. “Anything I can help with?”

James glances over his shoulder.

“Actually,” he says, “yeah. There’s a couple of things. Do you know how to make salt dough?”

~

Matilda click-clicks into James’ room on her little clawed paws after perhaps five minutes, and hops up on the bed just as Steve turns to look at her. He’s already put his Sunday best away, and his underwear, and most of his clothes. He’s plugged in chargers, stashed presents. But there’s a cardigan still out on the bed, and she goes and stands on it immediately. And then makes a small, scratchy, indignant sort of noise at him, little pink mouth opening wide.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Steve says, and he lets her sniff his hand for a long, long few moments, little puffs of breath against his fingers. 

She seems to remember him, and shoves her face into his knuckles a moment later, so he spends a minute or two mumbling things to the cat while she makes a happy face. Animals are nice - they judge a lot less than humans do. She bites him when he’s had enough.

“Ow!” he laughs. “Okay, Jeez,” and he goes back to unpacking. 

His hoodie - the one he sleeps in sometimes - has strings, so that gets commandeered pretty quickly too (he nearly loses a hand), and then he walks to James’ closet hoping for a mirror. There is one, on the inside of the door, and he makes sure he doesn’t look terrible before he closes it again and goes past the bed. Matlida flips onto her back but Steve’s no fool so he rubs under her chin and the sides of her face instead. 

That earns him a little rumble before he goes. 

He takes with him his phone, his tablet and his Avengers Alert beeper, and then he readies himself to go downstairs. 

Okay, he’s an Avenger and he knows these people, he can do this. There’s no reason he can’t do this. He’s great at stuff like this, right?

He goes downstairs, running his fingers over the rail-tinsel as he does. Tinsel always felt strange to him - papery and pointy, scratchy even though it looks so soft.

The stairs lead into the hallway and the hallway leads down to the kitchen, but ahead of him is the living room door, through which he goes. The dining room is on the other side of the house, but the main room, and its beautiful tree and its many ornaments and scented candle and lights in the window, are directly below James’ room. He’ll have to remember not to be heavy-footed if he can help it. 

“Hey,” James says from the couch, and Steve’s inordinately grateful to see him. 

“Hi,” he says, quietly, and sits down next to James, and he’s leaning in for a kiss when Becca’s voice yells from…somewhere? He doesn’t know where.

“Is he downstairs now?” and Steve laughs, presses a quick kiss to James’ lips and then stands up again. 

“Which one?”

“You!” Becca answers. “I’m a hugger, I’m gonna hug you!”

She’s in the dining room, Steve’s pretty sure, and she emerges a few moments later proving him right.

“Hey!” she says, and she slows down as she approaches, giving him time to get away.

“Hi, Becca,” he says, and she looks sort of anxious, a little sad.

“Where’s the holes?” she says. “I don’t wanna like…” she gestures vaguely. “Uh.”

“Oh nono,” Steve says, stepping forward as she hesitates, “no, it’s fine, it’s actually- They’re healed. They were healed like a month and a half ago, two months.” Becca gives him a look like, _for real?_ and he nods. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

She’s careful about hugging him anyway, but he hugs back and she pats his back when she pulls away.

“Glad you lived,” she says, and Steve laughs just as James’ mom walks in.

“Rebecca!” she says, scandalized, and she points at Steve.

“He laughed, I’m off the hook!” 

James’ mom doesn’t look convinced. 

“Ma’am, can I help at all?” he says, in some small attempt to maybe smooth things over, and she gives him a look.

“Well you’re dating my son, so you could call me by my first name.”

“Uh,” Steve says, and looks at James for a moment before he shakes his head a little, wincing. “I’m…not ready for that, Ma’am, no disrespect.”

She shrugs, rolls her eyes.

“Well,” she says with a shrug of her shoulders. “Today is food opening - you can help me with that.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Steve says, just as James says, 

“Sure thing, Mom,” and then they look at each other. 

“I meant all three of you,” James’ mom says, and Becca makes a noise.

“Come on, Ma, I’ve got my project-”

“You had your project when you were watching the humans this morning, too,” James’ mom says, and Becca rolls her eyes.

It’s startling how similar they are.

“Steve, we’re having a buffet for the next couple of big meals - we put it all out on the table and you take what you want.”

Steve nods slowly.

“Okay,” he says. 

“And anything that doesn’t get eaten will go off in maybe two days because that’s how the holiday stuff works, so really,” she pauses until he looks at her, “please, eat what you want. I promise there’s more.”

“Yeah, mom’s got like an industrial freezer full of Christmas stuff. I’m waiting on the chocolate pie!” Becca says, and Steve looks at her.

“I make a pretty good millionaire’s trifle,” he says. 

“James I know you’re dating him,” Becca answers, “but Steve lives here now.”

~

Mainly it’s putting things on plates, for the time being. 

They’ll do fresh vegetables tomorrow - now, opening packaging is the priority. 

“This all looks so good,” Steve says, and Chip laughs.

“Hope you eat as well as James says - we bought plenty for everyone,” and Steve smiles as Chip claps him on the shoulder when he passes.

It doesn’t quite fade but he feels it change - this is a family. A _Barnes_ family, and he already loves their son. He doesn’t doubt he’ll love the rest of them, too - it’s hard not to love a Barnes family.

“You okay?” James says, seeing something Steve wasn’t aware he was showing, and he schools his expression carefully when he nods, holds up a finger.

Anthea’s going into the utility for the - actually literal - industrial freezer, and Steve watches her go before he answers.

“I’m okay,” he says. “Just…nostalgic. Christmas is like this.”

James nods, looks concerned but not overly so, and reaches up to brush Steve’s hair off his forehead where it’s in danger of falling over his eyes.

“You know I love you,” he says, and he looks solemn - Steve appreciates it. “And you know I’m here if you wanna talk.”

Steve nods, smiles a little.

“Ain’t nothin’ to talk about, honey,” he says. “I just get to missin’ ‘em this time ‘a year.”

James nods, swallows hard.

“Yeah,” he says. 

He rubs his hand over Steve’s chest as he lowers it again, right over the center, and then he goes back to unwrapping mini pâté. 

“Hey,” Steve says after a moment or two, and James looks at him. “I hope you know how lucky I am to have you.”

James’ eyebrows go up.

“Yeah, you and me both, son-” he says, but Steve shakes his head.

“No, I mean it,” he says. “You’re…” he can’t think of how to say it, of what to say to make it come out the way it feels on the inside. “You’re such a big part of me now. I hope you know…” he tries to think of a better way but he can’t, it doesn’t work, so he taps his chest instead. “How much.”

James nods, lower lip looking a little wobbly.

“You’re gonna feel like this the whole time, huh?”

Steve laughs, presses his lips together, and sighs.

“Yeah,” he says, and he tries to smile. “Probably.”

***

Lunch is cold cuts and Christmassy stuff - there’s orange and cranberry in almost everything (which Steve loves in abundance anyway) and then dessert is little cinnamon pastries and alcoholic cream, with maybe a little Kahlua in their coffee, too.

The general idea seems to be regularly checking on the progress of any food that’s warming, eating what they’re interested in (as well as remembering to cover the food that’s out, lest it fall victim to certain felines) and otherwise sitting in the living room. There’s a fire in the fireplace, electric, and the tree is covered in warm white lights like Steve’s.

“We like the traditional stuff,” Chip said at one point, and Steve’s glad for it. 

“Me too,” he said, “I’m a little old fashioned,” and it got him a bit of a laugh.

James snuggles up to him, warm from the alcohol, and Steve puts his arm around James because they fit together. He worries for a little while that James’ parents might disapprove more than they show, but it’s an unfounded worry as far as he can tell.

The mantle has lights, the windows have lights, the tree and the wreaths and the little ornaments sit in places Steve doesn’t doubt were carefully considered. 

Matilda knocks over a little star when she hops up into the windowsill but nobody pays it any mind. It isn’t snowing at the moment, but the snow on the ground isn’t dissipating, either, and she sits and squints at the bright outdoors while they talk amongst themselves. 

“Four times,” Steve says, holding up four fingers. 

Anthea winces, shakes her head, and Chip is looking at Steve like he’s shining too brightly - halfway to squinting. 

“How long does that even take to heal?” Becca says, and James’ fingers squeeze a little tighter on his knee.

“Couple months,” Steve says. “I have to eat like a lunatic while I’m healing.”

“I mean, you eat like a lunatic already, right?” Becca says, and Steve nods.

“Yeah,” he chuckles, “but it’s worse when I’m healing.”

“He French-toasted an apple pie Krispy Kreme,” James says. “And then he ate it with syrup.”

“Oh wow,” Becca says, like she’s thinking about trying it.

“Ugh, God,” Anthea laughs, and Chip also looks like he’s thinking about trying it. 

“I got tons of ‘em,” Steve says. “James made me a whole pot of peanut sauce.”

“What’d you have…it with…?” Becca says, but James is already shaking his head.

“Nope,” he says. “Down in one, right?”

“It was delicious,” Steve nods. 

Becca asks if he scars and James faux-accuses her of trying to get a look at Steve’s abs. They talk a little about the safety and access protocols in the tower. They discuss Steve’s recipe for mince pies and the best way to make bread pudding from scratch.

“One year I did it with this Panettone somebody gave me. Cut it all in slices and threw in some chocolate chips - that one got to be a favorite. I know for a fact there was one year they banded together to buy like twelve of ‘em to make sure I could make it all year ‘round.”

“Chip likes bread pudding,” Anthea says, and Steve nods.

“Well,” he says, “it’s a good season for it. Easter too - you know they do those fancy hot cross buns now? Salted caramel and chocolate orange, all’a that?”

“Oh, I never thought of that!” Chip says, and then he looks at Andrea. “I know what I’m making for Easter lunch!”

Matilda leaves the windowsill when she gets too cold and, instead, curls up in front of the fireplace. Eventually, they break out crossword puzzles and tablets, books and phones, and lapse into comfortable silence, warm and and safe as the day wears on, happy in each others’ company.

~ 

“Ma’am,” Steve says, and Anthea turns to look at him.

He’s standing with his head and shoulders inside the kitchen doorframe, a little washed out in the artificial light now it’s dark outside and rumpled from the impromptu nap he took earlier on in the afternoon. He looks about as happy to be in her kitchen as a sinner in church. 

“Yeah?” she says, because she remembers Chip looking that way when he stuck his head in her mother’s kitchen years and years ago.

“Uh, do you guys have a, uh….” He pauses, glances around, and she wonders what he could want. They have a washer, a dryer, all the usual mod cons and everything in the first aid kit from band aids to Prep H, so she can probably direct him to anything even if it’s embarrassing. “Concrete doorframe?”

She blinks at him.

“A concrete doorframe,” she says, turning the words over in her head. “The…door to the garage is concrete? The doorframe?”

Steve nods.

“That’s great, Ma’am, may I use it to exercise?”

“Uhm,” she says. “You…can?”

“I have a pull-up bar with me. I got some pedals and a couple weights too but I don’t need to use your home’s structural integrity for that so I thought I’d ask. You be okay with that?”

“Sure?” she says. 

It’s nice of him to ask. He beams.

“Thanks,” he says, and disappears.

James has already told her about Steve’s appetite, but James wasn’t kidding about the freezer. They have a fridge/freezer combo, but they also have an industrial freezer in the garage, and it’s full of food. She and Chip’ll be making extra this year, with plenty in reserve if they don’t make enough. Nobody’s going hungry in her house this Christmas, not if she can help it.

“Do you guys lock your door?” Steve’s voice says, and she turns back to look at him.

He’s stuck his head in again.

“Yeah?” she says. 

“Are you alright if I take James’ keys with me if I have to go out when y’all are sleeping?”

‘Y’all are sleeping’ - isn’t this guy from Brooklyn?

“Yeah,” she says, biting back a smile. “You thinkin’ midnight grocery run?”

He laughs a little.

“Just a run, Ma’am,” he says. “I go first thing in the morning, I’ll be back before the sun’s up.”

She nods.

“Run past any grocery stores?” she says, and he cocks his head.

“I can do,” he says. “Whaddya need?”

She laughs, shakes her head and waves him off. 

“It’s fine, I’m kidding,” she says. “You want to work out in the garage or are you alright in James’ room?”

“I, uh,” he says. “I’m fine in James’ room - he won’t let me take the couch.”

“Yeah, he thinks you can’t both fit in the bed,” she answers. “I’m pretty sure you can.”

Steve’s eyebrows go up a little way, and that tells her what she thought - that he’s walking on eggshells about them sharing a room. 

“Well I might take a bedroll on the floor anyway,” Steve says, and he doesn’t seem quite so…stiff over his shoulders. Seems to stand a little easier when he actually steps a little further into the room. “Depends how soft the bed is, you know. You…uh, get used to certain things.”

She nods, turns back to the dishes. 

“Well if there’s something you need that we’re not doing - you know, if you need quiet or space or if you need something in particular to drink, or, anything like that, you know. I don’t understand all of what you’ve been through but I know…a little about. Some of it, I just mean…let us know. If you need anything.”

“Uh,” Steve says, and he steps forward, comes a little further in. “I, uh. I know you said it was, you know. Hospitality. Uh, last time, I mean, but it would. Help. For me to be doing things, so. Could I dry?”

She doesn’t turn back to look at him for a moment because that sounded difficult to say, and it kind of surprised her to hear it. Help him what, she wonders? But considering who he is and what he’s been through and the kind of problems James’ anecdotes have suggested, she’s pretty sure she knows at least the nature of it.

“That’s fine,” she says, and she nods at a dish towel because she has her hands in the water. “I,” and she wonders if she should but she can’t imagine it would hurt, not really. “I’m an organizer. Something goes wrong, I go reorganize the linen closet or clean out the refrigerator.”

Steve nods - she sees him as he comes to stand next to her.

“Yeah,” he says. “When I,” he says, and then he wets his lips, “got reanimated, I moved to D.C. for a while just to have somewhere to work.”

She nods too.

“Mm,” she says. “So what’s a nice art student like you doing in a superhero outfit like that?”

Steve laughs - tips his head back and says “Ha!” - and then starts picking up the crockery she’s cleaned in order to dry it. “Man, that’s,” he says, and he blows out a breath. “That’s a good one.” He looks at her. “How much do you know?”

It’s her turn to laugh this time.

“Oh, not much,” she says, because everyone knows what they were taught in school and seen on TV, but she doesn’t really know much about the man her son is dating. “Why don’t you start from the beginning.”

“Hmm,” Steve says, reaching for the next plate. “Okay so, stop me if you’ve heard this one.”

~

Chip and Anthea turn in at about eleven. Anthea kisses James and Becca on the forehead and hesitates when she gets to Steve, but Steve smiles, thinking maybe goodnight will suffice.

Instead, she leans down and hugs him.

Chip claps him on the shoulder again and they leave. 

“I’ll be honest,” Becca says, “I still got no idea what to say to you.”

Steve huffs a laugh through his nose.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” he says. “I ain’t that interesting.”

“Ohh, suuuure,” she says, “yeah, I buy that. Who is this lunatic?” 

James laughs too, although it’s subdued. 

Becca talks to Steve about the ornaments on the tree, and then they get into ornament origin, and that gets onto religion, which gets into politics, and then they’re into science - which leads them to astronomy and meteorology - and then into education (”why the hell don’t they teach that in school? I’d’ve fuckin’ loved to learn that shit!” Becca says) from which they segue into art and history.

“I mean,” Steve says. “Christmas sucked objectively. Like, you look at it from now’s point’a view, I had an orange and some flour shapes and half a branch, or we was cold, or we didn’t have nothin’ much ta eat but…”

“I’m sorry,” Becca says.

“Nah, don’t be sorry,” Steve tells her, and he maybe holds James just a little tighter. “It’s a different kinda sad. You know?”

Becca purses her lips and tries to smile.

“Yeah,” she says. “Like. Gramma. Like we miss her…but…”

Steve holds it together, just barely.

“You miss ‘em, but you’re glad you knew ‘em.”

Becca nods.

James squeezes him back.

“Yeah.”

~

Becca starts yawning around twelve-thirty, and Steve is fighting off sleep himself - it’s been a long day just for how On he’s had to be. 

Or, not _had_ to be, obviously, James’ family is good people. But…Steve’s been on his best behavior and it takes it out of him.

They sit and stare at the tree for a while, close, quiet, with the main light out, but Steve can’t stave off his yawning any longer.

“Alright,” he says. “I’m gonna head upstairs. You gonna come kiss me goodnight?”

So they get up off the couch - at which point James feeds Matilda because last person up means Food Time apparently - and they go upstairs together. They undress and get into their pajamas, take turns in the bathroom, and then…

Well.

“Alright,” James says. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

This is ridiculous. James is going to be in the same house, literally a floor away. Why does it feel like such a wrench?

“Right,” Steve says.

He’s just tired. And cold, thank God he brought spare socks. He’ll feel better in the morning.

James turns around and makes for the door.

“Don’t I get a kiss goodnight?” Steve says, and James smiles, ducks his head.

Steve kisses him relative to how he feels, which means that it takes a little while, and then James pulls away from him, pink over the bridge of his nose, and waves as he goes out the door.

“Night,” he says. “I love you.”

Steve nods.

“Love you too,” he says.

He hears James walk down the stairs, hears the living room door close. Hears James’ voice through the floor as he says something to Matilda. 

But James, and the rest of the house, falls silent soon enough. 

It’s strange - he uses the lamp on the nightstand after he’s turned out the main light, and the room feels big and empty and foreign to him. James is less than twenty feet away but it’s like being in a hotel in rural Europe - homey and a little daunting, quiet enough that he daren’t make a sound. Like a little B&B in France or a German rent-a-cottage, it’s nice. It _lovely_ , and he’s been made to feel so welcome. But it’s not home.

Home is asleep on the couch downstairs with a warm cat and a big blanket, and a big, green night-light.

Steve says his prayers, and gets to sleep eventually.


	3. Christmas Eve

James comes awake at five in the morning, halfway up his parents’ flight of stairs. There’s a blanket over him, and he’s being carried.

“Huh?” he says.

“Shh, shh, sweetheart,” Steve’s voice whispers, and they make a left turn into James’ room. “I’m goin’ runnin’,” he murmurs. “You’re gettin’ in bed.”

James is jostled a little and then he’s in his bed - which is _warm_ \- and the covers are pulled up over him. Steve presses a kiss to his forehead a moment later.

“What,” James says, and Steve laughs softly.

Oh wow it’s really warm.

~

Steve sits on the end of the bed to tie his sneakers, and James is lying still and breathing evenly by the time he closes the door behind him. The stairs only creak in one place - he noticed that yesterday and he avoids it easily - and James left his keys on the hook near the coat closet, so Steve takes those too.

It is _freezing_ when he steps outside, his breath forming huge plumes in front of him, his flesh prickling with goosebumps. Cold doesn’t do it justice - it’s like he’s never breathed through his nose before, like his lungs have never really opened. It’s sharp and painful, chills him down to the bone instantly - nowhere’s left warm and quite a lot is left stinging.

He walks down the path and looks left and right - there are no lights on in houses but the street is full of sparkling decorations and big, silent trees. The world is so bright even though it’s so dark, streetlamp-light shining on the show. More’s fallen while they slept, although not much, and it’s mainly untouched. He’ll leave footprints, but it doesn’t bother him. If someone were going to use snowy footprints to find him, they’d be close enough to hurt him already.

He looks left, looks right, pulls up his fleece face mask and sets off, feet pounding pavement as the cold air burns his lungs.

~

It’s going to stay dark for another few hours yet, and so Steve runs and runs, full of an energy he can’t really pin down. He didn’t sleep as well as he’d’ve liked - especially since they’re going to be up late tonight - and he feels like he could run for days, something else in his bones besides the cold.

He runs to the bigger streets, where it doesn’t matter if they recognize him even with the beard he hasn’t shaved, he runs under taller lights, and then veers into the quieter streets again, past decorated gardens and lit-up windows, along roads chock full of cars of people staying for the holiday. 

It’s six-fifteen when he gets back to James’ parents’ house, and he takes a few minutes to warm down on their doorstep before he goes inside.

~

Rebecca hears the door at six-fifteen and figures it’s someone she knows. Like, she doesn’t think they’re being robbed or anything, but she listens carefully for more movement. 

She hears keys, footsteps, the croaky meow of a disgruntled cat, and then a voice that’s more like a distant eighteen wheeler going past, the bass tones of which come up through the floor. Three syllables, _hmmm,_ hmmm-hmm, and it’s Steve, unmistakably. Another three, hmm hmm _hmmmm._ She’s heard him do it once or twice - it’s ‘hey sweetheart, how you doin?’ Because Matilda cannot be deterred once she knows someone’s awake.

Becca gets up and sticks her feet in her slippers, grabs her dressing gown, and heads down the stairs. She’s the light sleeper of the family, but she’s also good at going back to sleep once she’s woken up.

 _“…don’t know where the food is, honey…”_ she hears, and she smiles.

She can hear Steve in the kitchen - food’s in the utility room along with the litterbox - but she’ll save him the trouble of a search.

He hears her coming, of course he does, because he’s got superhearing, but the man she finds in the kitchen isn’t the guy she’s expecting. He turns to face her and he’s, first of all, sunburned? Or he’s been crying - wow also he’s very obviously cold in that compression shirt.

“Hi,” he says. “Cat?”

She points at the utility. His beard’s even thicker today and it’s lighter at the roots - it’s starting to look like he stuck it on with spirit gum.

“Utility room,” she says, and then has to cover her mouth when she yawns. 

“Ah,” Steve says. “Half package, whole, what’s she get?”

“Give her half to start, she’ll let you know if she wants more,” Becca says, and she goes over to the stove and puts on a pot of water because Steve is, her brain has finally recognized, freezing.

Steve chuckles.

He says a few little things to Matilda and then reemerges.

“Been out?” she says, and he looks a little out of breath.

“Yeah,” he says. “Runnin’. Fuckin’ cold now though.”

She snorts. 

“Yeah, no shit,” she says, because if he’s swearing, she’s swearing. “I’m makin’ hot chocolate.”

“Listen,” Steve says, rubbing his hands together, “I know I’m dating James, but I live here now.”

She laughs, and sets about heating some milk.

“You don’t use the microwave?” Steve says, and she shakes her head.

“I could,” she answers, and she goes to one of the cabinets, takes out a tin of beans and pops off the lid, to show Steve her secret stash of chocolate chips, “but these don’t melt as well in there.”

Steve shivers, but he also says, 

“Mmmmmm,” with a light in his eyes.

It doesn’t take her long - maybe five minutes. Steve’s teeth are chattering or, at least, his breathing is shuddering and, when she hands him a mug, he wraps both hands around it.

“God, that smells amazing,” he says, and she turns off the stove, sticks the pot in the sink. 

“I’m goin’ back to bed,” she says, and Steve nods.

“Good plan,” he says.

He flips the switch on the kitchen light because he goes last, and she goes up the stairs and takes a turn into her room.

“See you at like ten,” she whispers, and he grins, raises his mug to her.

“Thanks,” he says.

She pulls a stupid face and his whole expression crumples up he smiles so hard.

She gets back into bed with her hot chocolate and sips it until it’s all gone. She should brush her teeth but she’s not going to. That would involve getting back out of bed.

~

Steve goes into James’ room as quietly as he can but he really ought to have gotten out of his sweaty compression gear when he came in. He couldn’t neglect Matilda, of course not, but now he’s really cold, and all that warming up his body did while he ran has faded. 

He bites his lip and clenches his jaw to keep from making noise, and he finds a long-sleeved jersey and a sweater. Also his hoodie. He’s thinking about his gloves.

He’s about to start getting changed when James stirs - dammit, is he going to wake the entire household trying to be stealthy?

“You’re back?” James mumbles, and his head appears from the covers.

“Hi,” Steve manages. “Yeah.”

James pushes up onto his elbows, frowning at him.

“You’re all,” he says, “nipply.”

Steve blinks at him.

“I’m,” he says, and looks down - yeah, James isn’t wrong. “Cold?”

James holds out a hand, and Steve walks over, not sure what he wants.

“What?” he says, but James reaches out and grasps his fingers, and then hisses and pulls his hand back.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he says, pushing himself up, pulling back the covers.

“What?” Steve says. “No, what are you-”

“You’re takin’ a bath,” James says. “Come on.”

~

Steve looks surprised and confused, and James picks up his mug of whatever - aw, hot chocolate, man, that’s not fair. It’s that stuff Becca makes that she won’t tell him where the chocolate is.

“Becca’s up?” he says.

“She was,” Steve nods, lowering his voice as James opens the door. “Went back to bed.”

“She made you hot chocolate,” James says, and raises an eyebrow.

“You can have it if you want,” Steve says, and James purses his lips and hands him back the mug.

Once Steve’s taken it, James grasps his _ice-fucking-cold Jesus_ hand and leads him down the corridor. 

Just outside his parents’ room, he points at a spot on the floor. Steve stops, looks down - he’s covert ops, he probably gets it. James steps over the floorboard that’s creaked since he was fricken born, and—

_REEKEE--_

Steve does not, way to go Steve. 

James just gives him a _look_ and Steve - who was snow white and bright red, is now much more bright red, and covers his mouth with the mug as his eyes shut tight while his shoulders quake.

James just shakes his head as he rolls his eyes, and leads him onward.

The plumbing isn’t old, and it does make a little noise, but overall James is able to fill the bath without the whole house shaking itself to pieces.

“S-Sorry I woke you,” Steve says, but James hears the shiver and shakes his head.

“Gimme the drink,” he says, the bath being maybe three quarters full, and Steve does. “Get undressed.”

Steve nods quickly, and strips his shirt off over his head. Yeah, his nipples are two hard little points and his skin is gooseflesh as far as James can see. It makes his chest hair look really fluffy, but where his nose and his cheeks are bright red, his nipples and all the swathes of skin are painfully white. His tags have little droplets on them - they must have gotten cloudy with condensation in the warmth of the house.

James puts one warm palm on Steve’s back as Steve strips off his trousers and his underwear and shivers harder. James gets his hands on Steve’s arms to get a good look at him.

“Ready?” James says, drops one hand to somewhere _else_ that’s obviously unhappy with the temperature.

Steve nods, flinching as James makes contact. Even his _balls_ are cold when James cups them in one hand, and Steve hisses inward through his teeth, tilts his head back and says,

“Oooh,” quietly, not happy.

“It’s gonna feel hot,” James says, and Steve nods, watches him go and turn off the taps.

“That’s fine,” he says, turning around, lifting one foot to get it in the water. “I’m not hypothermic, I can get in the bath, I’ll be- _haaa, fff-”_

James rushes back and hoverhandses him just in case.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” Steve mutters, but he persists. “Hoo, hooohoo,” And James claps a hand over his mouth so he doesn’t laugh. 

It takes him a few minutes to get in - he clearly seriously considers the old just-get-it-over-with, but James has filled the bath high, and the likelihood of a tidal wave is too great. As it is, Steve makes James turn around when he gets to about waist height, and there’s a lot of aborted whisper-cursing for a good thirty seconds, until it eases off and Steve’s breaths are a little less pregnancy-practise and a little more how-was-that-for-you.

James risks a glance and sees that Steve has crunched up in the tub with his legs turned sideways, because his knees will stick out of the water otherwise, but he has his back flat against the wall of the tub, and he’s up to his neck in the water.

“I can’t feel my skin,” he says, breathless, but he closes his eyes a moment later. “Startin’ to feel my fingers though.”

James nods, kneels down next to the back and cards his fingers through Steve’s cold, sweat-damp hair.

“Good,” he says. “I’m gonna lock the door.”

Steve’s eyes pop open as James gets back to his feet.

“I’m sorry, the door isn’t locked already?” he says.

“It’s fine,” James answers.”Nobody’s awake anyw- oh, hi.”

Steve shifts in the bath, a slosh of water as he tries to see who it is.

It’s Matilda, and James locks the door behind her.

“Oh,” Steve says, and settles again. “Hi, kitty.”

She scratches a meow at them both and then goes to go sit on the lid of the toilet to watch them.

James comes back and sticks a hand in the water, rubs his hand over Steve’s chest and his still very hard nipples.

“How’s it feel?” he says. 

“Mmmh,” Steve answers, his eyes closed again. “Hot.”

James nods.

“It’s like kinda hot but I didn’t wanna put it too-”

“I know,” Steve says, and then he opens his eyes and looks at James. “Just feels hot ‘cause I’m cold. But it’s helping. Thanks.”

James shrugs, picks up Steve’s hot chocolate and lowers it so he can get it to Steve’s mouth.

“Thought I was the service top,” Steve says, but dutifully drinks the remaining hot chocolate.

He sticks his mouth and chin in the water when he’s done, swipes his hand over the beard to clean it.

“I’ll wash your hair,” James says. 

“Yeah,” Steve says, “okay.”

James won’t do the beard, obviously - he doesn’t want to like…get soap in Steve’s mouth or something, but he finds the shampoo and grabs the plastic tumbler they have for the toothbrushes so he can rinse it out.

Then he brings it over so he’ll be able to scoop water over Steve’s head, and Steve is just lying there in a bath with no bubbles, naked and submerged up to his neck and just looking at him. Unconcerned, slowly warming up, right there in a big bright bathroom while it’s dark outside and the house is asleep.

James gets shampoo in his palms and then in Steve’s hair, and he picks up a little water to work it into a lather. Steve sits where he is with his head back and his eyes closed, a small smile on his face, and lets James do what he’s doing, and doesn’t say a word.

***

Chip comes downstairs to the smell of food and expects to find Anthea in the kitchen, because it’s about half past ten and she left the bedroom first and she insists on starting things they’ve decided to do together before he’s ready to start.

What he finds instead is his two children and the original Captain America in full breakfast-making mode.

Rebecca’s grating potato for the hash browns and James is chopping onions next to a pile of chopped mushrooms and chopped tomatoes. The coffee maker is exuding the kind of smell that Chip really would kill for probably, and Steve G Rogers is busy frying…bacon and bread in one pan and sausages and eggs in another. 

He’s got both on the go at once, and smiles when Chip walks in.

“Morning,” he says. “I hope you don’t mind - James says you guys usually have a full English, Christmas Eve, and we thought we’d save you some trouble.”

Becca’s already pouring him a cup of coffee.

“Uh,” he says, and thanks her when she hands it to him. “Sorry, where’s your mother?”

“I dunno,” Becca says, like _duh, dad,_ “bathroom?”

Chip nods slowly. Yeah, that’s probably right.

He sits down at the kitchen table with his coffee and watches them work.

“Honey, where’s the butter?” Steve says.

“I’ll get it,” James says, and he walks to the refrigerator for it. 

Steve doesn’t even look when he takes it, James doesn’t even look when he hands it over, and Steve’s busy sliding rashers of bacon out of he pan onto an already laden plate when James cuts some of the butter and drops it in another one of the pans, following it with the mushrooms. 

It smells great - Chip is definitely going to have some fried bread because the rich, toasty, oily scent of it is irresistible - and his only concern is that it might take a while to cook.

“How’d you take your eggs, Sir?” Steve says, looking back over his shoulder, and Chip blinks at him, frowns at him.

“Uh,” he says. “I like ‘em poached,” he says, “but don’t feel you-”

“That’s fine,” Steve says with a nod, and goes back to his cooking. “Becca, you got that pot somewhere?”

~

Chip gets a piece of fried bread on a plate all to himself because Steve makes it once he says how much he likes it. Steve fries it in the bacon fat and sets it in front of him, and chip points at his children.

“Don’t tell your mom,” he says. 

“Don’t tell your mom what?” Anthea says as she walks in, and Chip does not have time to shove the whole piece in his mouth. 

“Uh,” he says.

“That we made you a hazelnut coffee,” Becca says before Chip can get an earful about his diet (come on, it’s Christmas!), and she looks so surprised even Steve has to turn away to hide his smile.

“What’s all this?” she says, and James beams at her.

“It’s our turn,” he says. “You and dad go do whatever wherever-”

“Shakira Shakira,” Becca giggles, and James ignores her, but it’s Steve who finishes the sentence.

“-and we’ll take care of breakfast.”

Chip looks at his children and Com…Steve. His children, and his son’s boyfriend.

“I think we can manage that,” he says eventually. And then he looks at Anthea. “What do you think?”

“For the price of one bacon,” she says, nose in the air, “I will comply.”

“Blackmail,” Steve says, and holds out the plate. “I like it. Wait, extortion? Bribery!” he says then, at the same time as Anthea, and she laughs.

Anthea takes her bacon and her coffee, and Chip gets up and follows her into the living room.

The fire’s on already for some reason, although Chip’s not concerned by it - it’s cold as balls today - and Anthea pulls her feet up onto the couch and cups her hands around her coffee. 

He grabs the nearest blanket and joins her, and she snuggles up to him in her pajamas and dressing gown so they can share the blanket. James comes in a moment later and heads on over to the TV.

“Want on some music?” he says, and Chip feels his eyebrows go up.

“Sure,” Anthea says, “that’d be nice.”

Matilda hops up onto Chip’s knee a moment later - she always does but _especially_ if there’s a blanket - and James tunes in to some radio station that’s playing Christmas music through the set. 

“Okay?” he says, and Anthea nods.

“Yeah,” she says, wiggling her shoulders to snuggle down a little more. “Thank you.”

And James goes back in the kitchen.

Anthea takes another drink and puts her head on his shoulder.

“This is nice,” she says. “Not having to do anything. I could get used to it. 

Chip snorts.

“Yeah, no kidding,” he says. 

He stares at the fire for a little bit, chucks Matilda under the chin when she complains that he isn’t paying her enough attention.

“Aw, poor neglected pussycat,” Anthea commiserates, but then she looks at him. “We could set the table if you want?”

“Can’t sit still for five minutes, huh?” Chip says, and she smiles sheepishly. 

“I mean, it’s Christmas eve.”

“Exactly,” Chip says. “We’re gonna be run off our feet this afternoon, just enjoy sittin’ down now. We get brunch! They’re making brunch for us!”

“Hmm,” she says. 

He kisses her for good measure.

“It _is_ nice,” she says. “It’s nice they’re happy.”

She means Steve and James, of course.

“Yeah,” he says. 

“You know Steve was all antsy about bein’ in the same bed as James.”

Chip rolls his eyes.

“God,” he says. “Can you imagine?”

“I know,” she answers. “Remember that time my mom almost caught us?”

“Remember it?” Chip says. “I still have _nightmares_ about it. The inside of your closet. No freaking underwear. ‘ _I better not catch that Barnes boy in there_ -”

She smacks the back of her hand against his chest but she’s smiling.

“My mom doesn’t sound like that, asshole.”

“ _‘He’s no good, not for my precious baby’_ ” and she giggles, which is what he wanted.

“What smells like lavender?” Becca’s voice asks.

Steve’s voice answers,

“It’s _meeeeeeee_ -” and then “ow, shit, haha, that’s what I get, good job you gave me an apron - you got a paper towel?”

Anthea covers her mouth. There’s a loud pop from the kitchen and Chip doesn’t want to know.

“Yeah,” he nods instead, and he looks down at her. “Okay. He’s good people.”

She leans up and kisses him this time. Matilda complains.

“Okay, okay,” Chip says, “we love you too, Jeez.”

“Our kid’s dating Steve Rogers,” she says softly. 

And Chip looks at the tree, looks at the kitchen. Looks at her.

“Good enough for our precious baby?” he says, and she wrinkles her nose, bobs her head from side to side.

“I mean,” she says. 

“Becca, nooo, bacon!” Steve’s voice says, and Becca cackles. And then. “JAMES! NO! BACON!”

And then James cackles. 

"Betrayaaal!" Becca says.

“Almost?” Anthea says, and Chip puts his arm around her and rubs a little warmth into her upper arm.

“Yeah,” he smiles.

***

They don’t even manage to get dressed for brunch - the plan is to go once it’s table setting time, but Steve puts one hand either side of the doorframe and sticks his head and shoulders through not twenty minutes later.

“Soupy, soupy, soupy,” he says, smiling, eyebrows raised, and then nods a head towards the dining room.

“Already?” Anthea says, because she was halfway back to sleep. “I’m not even dressed!”

“That’s okay, I showed up in a compression shirt and essentially leggings this morning,” Steve says. “You have a dressing gown, you’re in the lead. Want me to take the cat, Sir?”

“Uh,” Chip says, and Steve steps forward, picks Matilda up.

She makes a strange aborted yowly noise but then he’s got her up on his shoulder.

“Hey sweetie,” he says, and then he points at the living room door, not the one that’ll take them through the kitchen. “We’ll be right through.”

Chip’s holding the door for Anthea when Steve goes back in the kitchen with the cat-

“Ah-ah! Ow! I’ll put you dow- ow. Fine. James, darling?”

“Yeah?” James’ voice answers after a second, and Anthea gives Chip an ‘ooh how fancy!’ kind of look - Rebecca does a pretty good one too - and they go through to the dining room.

The places are set. The places are set _impeccably_ actually - everyone has a plate, a bowl, a glass, a mug, a side plate and a set of cutlery. There’s a jug of orange juice and the French press is on the table, so’s a milk jug. The serving dishes are covered and there’s a basket - lined with paper towels - that looks like it’s full of pastries.

“Did you…?” he says, pointing at them. 

“I did not!” she answers quietly, and they take their seats.

Steve and James come in a few times between them, bringing the last of the dishes in. And then Steve takes a seat.

“Right,” he says, and then looks up.

“Oh,” Chip says. “Sure.”

They say grace together as a family, Steve’s voice a deep, quiet addition to the sound of their own, and then Steve gets to his feet again and starts uncovering dishes, starts lifting plates from settings.

“What can I get you, Ma’am?” he says, because he’s done Anthea’s first. 

“Uhm,” she says. “I’ll probably start with the savory, if you don’t mind?”

He beams. 

“You got it,” he says, and starts dishing up.

He does Chip’s plate next - Chip has bacon, sausage, poached eggs, fried bread, hash browns, mushrooms, roasted tomatoes okay he didn’t even know that was happening, and he asks for a croissant when Steve asks if there’s anything else. 

“Hey, ranch,” James says.

Steve sets the plate down and looks at him, a hand on his shoulder.

“Fridge?” he says, and James nods. 

Steve’s out of the room before Chip can offer to go, and James takes over serving.

“You don’t want anything at all, right?” he says to Becca.

“Sure, _Jabooby,”_ she says, and he narrows his eyes but starts dumping food on her plate.

Steve comes back with the ranch, sees that everyone’s pretty much dished up and then there’s an awkward moment where James tries to serve him and Steve tries to take over again.

“Oh, I,” Steve says, and James pulls the plate out of his way.

“You’re the guest,” he says, nose in the air just like his mother does. 

Steve tries to eat his own lips for a second and then puts his hands up in defeat.

“Alright!” he says, and sits down to pour himself a coffee instead. “Alright.”

Becca goes for the orange juice and Steve looks like he’s about to swallow his tongue.

“Uh!” he says a little loudly, and Becca rolls her eyes.

“Mom it’s mimosa,” she says. “Can I please?”

“Where did…?” Anthea says, and looks at Chip.

Chip’s got no idea.

“Beats me!” he says. 

“Uh, I,” Steve says. “Brought. Champagne.” 

That will have been the pop in the kitchen. 

There’s a short silence and then Anthea says,

“Yeah, go on, it’s Christmas.”

And Becca says,

“Yessss,” and pours herself maybe a quarter of a glass because she doesn’t actually like Champagne.

Chip hides his smile pretty well behind his bacon.

~

“So the plan,” Chip says, “is food prep this after, buffet food this eve, sit around and be quiet, naps for thems that needs, and then we’ll go to mass and have somethin’ warm when we get back. Pastries if there’s any left, Becca, would you make hot chocolate?”

“I would,” she answers with a very long nod. 

“Thank you,” but then Chip looks at Steve.

Steve in his slightly tomato-y apron and his beard.

“Are…Do you…?” he says.

Steve nods.

“Yeah, I do midnight, morning and crossover usually.”

“Crossover?” James says, head turning.

“New year’s eve to morning,” Steve answers, glancing at him. “Uh, but don’t let me…I mean, your plans are-”

“You’re coming with us then, right?” Becca says, in a voice that means she’s already decided the answer is yes. “We do midnight, you do midnight. So we’re all going. Right?”

Steve has gone very still, cutlery unmoving, forearms against the table, and his eyes are looking at Becca though his head is still turned towards Chip.

The silence stretches for a moment and Steve’s gaze flicks back to Chip.

“Right?” Chip says, and Steve looks mildly surprised for a moment.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, and then he nods, “yeah if…if that’s okay?”

“It’s fine, honey," Anthea tells him, "we’ll take both cars.”

“Or I can get in the trunk,” Steve says, mouth pulling up at one side. 

“Uh, excuse you, I get to ride in the trunk,” Becca says.

Chip passes a hand over his eyes.

“Nobody’s riding in the trunk.”

***

After brunch, when James’ parents go upstairs to get dressed, Steve goes up to James’ room and sits on the bed for a couple of minutes. James comes to find him not long after, and just sits down next to him. Steve puts his head on James’ shoulder.

“So,” he says. 

“That went well,” James tells him, and Steve nods, covers his mouth and yawns.

“Yeah,” he says. 

James puts a hand on his back and rubs his spine.

“You okay?”

Steve nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “Just need a minute.”

James nods too, thinks about it for a moment.

“You need me to go?”

“No, I’d like you to stay,” Steve says. “Please.”

James rubs Steve’s back some more.

“We’re a lot, huh?” he says.

“No,” Steve answers. “I just. Need a minute.”

“Okay,” James says, presses a little closer. “Okay.”

~

Becca actually does have a project to do, and so James and Steve help James’ mom and dad in the kitchen. 

His dad’s busy working out times, and then he’s doing the turkey. His mom’s on desserts and sauces because she’s a whizz with the flavor combos. James and Steve are doing veg.

“Are you sure you’re alright peeling potatoes?” his mom asks asks.

“Ma’am, I’m the son of an Irish immigrant, raised in the Depression. If I can’t peel ‘em with my eyes shut by now, y’oughta take me out back and shoot me.”

He is, as promised, very good at peeling potatoes. 

But Steve’s had a bad night, so he says, and an early morning, he’s somewhere he’s not used to and he’s only half present. And he’s got twelve potatoes peeled when his spotify playlist - currently playing through James’ phone in a manner that is both scratchy and tinny - hits “I Told Santa Claus to Bring Me You” and everything goes to shit. 

They’re working in relative silence, James slicing carrots, his mom working on the cranberry sauce, his dad in some cupboard, probably for foil, with the music going as a background to their tasks, when Steve turns in James’ periphery. James has time to see Steve’s head come up as he says

“Hey, Ma-” before he flinches hard enough that it looks like he’s been slapped, his whole face shuttering as it pales, and he grabs for the counter hard enough that James would think he was in an earthquake - his knees don’t quite buckle but it’s close enough.

_Fuck._

“Steve!” James’ mom says, but James gets between them.

“Hey,” he says, hands out but not touching. “It’s okay, I know. It’s okay. You know where you are?”

Steve doesn’t look at him. He tries, but his gaze skitters over James and winds up darting about the kitchen instead.

“Wow. Yeah,” Steve says, and his voice is _raw._ “I need-” His body reels over in the direction of the back door.

“Air,” James says, chucks his knife on the counter and holds his hands out to Steve, gets close enough to hold onto Steve’s elbow. “Good idea.”

“James,” his dad says. 

“Dad could you grab our jackets please?”

His dad moves fast.

“Shhhhit,” Steve says, and he puts the peeler down, his legs straighten but his spine does not, he plants his hands on the counter.

James glances at his mom and she points at herself, mouths something he doesn’t catch. He shakes his head instead - no, whatever she’s asking the answer is no.

James’ dad comes back with their jackets a few seconds later, and James gets into his, takes hold of Steve’s.

“Come on,” he says, nods a thank you to his dad and starts walking, his hand back on Steve’s arm.

Steve doesn’t protest, doesn’t resist.

“Just some air, okay?”

“Yeah,” Steve croaks. 

~

The back garden is freezing cold and James is breathing clouds, but Steve’s white, and wobbly, and his face is creased up and his cheeks are red.

“Sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. God.”

“It’s okay,” James says, and he holds up Steve’s jacket. 

For a long few moments, Steve looks at it like he’s not sure what to do with it, and then he goes to take it. James just shakes it a little, so Steve turns around so James can help him put it on.

“Hasn’t…” Steve says. “Happened in… in _years._ Not like that, not awake.”

James nods as Steve turns to face him again. 

“It’s okay,” he says. 

“I’m sorry.”

James nods, helps Steve button his coat because Steve’s hands are shaking.

“It’s okay,” he says. 

“I just,” he says. “I didn’t even remember that. I didn’t even know I, I had that memory, the potatoes. And the music - Bucky was with- I didn’t even - It hasn’t happened in years, I-I’m sorry-”

James reaches up and frames Steve’s face with his hands.

“God,” Steve whispers. “God, it’s been years, it’s been _years.”_

James nods, pulls just a little, and Steve’s body bends, he leans forward, he lets James pull him into a hug, heart pounding, breaths coming fast and irregular.

“It’s okay,” James says softly. “It’s okay.”

~

"Can I get you a coffee?" Anthea says, very quietly, and Steve lifts his head and looks at her as they pass.

"Tea," James says, "have we got any chamomile?"

"I'm sorry," Steve says, and Anthea follows them into the living room and turns off the TV. 

James' phone is no longer playing any music, he notes - she must have turned it off. Steve sits down on the couch and Anthea gives James the blanket. She draws the curtains, too, and Steve - still pale, still a little shaky - glances up as she goes back.

"Thank you," he rumbles, and James just sits close.

"Do you dislike honey?" Anthea says, and Steve frowns, shakes his head. 

"No?" he says.

And then she leaves.

They boil some water in a pot because Becca's the one with a kettle and Anthea's not about to go rooting around for it now, or yelling up to Becca, not when Steve needs quiet, and then she makes a chamomile tea. She puts in two teaspoons of honey and then considers whether she should leave out the milk. She'll put it in anyway. That's how she's always done it, that's how her kids have always had it, and it's worked out pretty well so far. 

It takes maybe five minutes for the tea to steep, and she can tell in the quiet that Steve and James are not talking in the living room. Chip taps her on the shoulder and she turns to look.

 _'He okay?'_ he's typed in the notes app on his phone. 

She takes it from him.

_'Needs time. Making tea, closed curtains, gave blanket.'_

Chip nods, writes some more.

_'Can do veg if needed.'_

She nods, waves vaguely, an unspoken _oh yeah,_ and she goes back to the tea. 

It's warm, not hot, when she hands it to Steve, and he thanks her for that too, apologizes.

"Don't need to apologize for who you are in this house," she says, and James looks at her with an expression she's not sure about, but she _thinks_ she did okay. 

And then she goes back in the kitchen and puts on some eighties stuff instead because it's what she grew up with, it'll mask any conversation Steve and James want to have, and it's not Christmas music, which she suspects was not helping. She's not sure he should be in the living room with the tree and all the decorations, actually, but he definitely needed to sit down.

"How's he look?" Chip says as Cyndi Lauper starts making a fuss, and Anthea shrugs one shoulder.

"I mean," she says. "He's breathing okay, he knows where he is. I'm not really sure there's much to do besides letting him come back to himself in his own time - he came out to help with the dishes last night as well, told me then he needs something to do."

"Mm, I'm like that," Chip nods. "When Mark broke up with me in college I built a full set of shelves."

She gives him a look.

"Hmmm, quite the handyman," she says. "One of the many things I love about you."

Chip wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her closer.

"You spelled 'handsy' wrong."

"That's because I said it," she answers. "Hand me the phone and I'll tell you how I really feel." 

He smiles but lets her go - they can't really be messing around in the kitchen when their son and his post-traumatically stressed boyfriend are sitting in the living room, trying to get aforementioned boyfriend's feet back on the ground. 

"I don't really know what to do about this kind of stuff," she says, and Chip taps away at his phone.

He pulls up PTSD on Wikipedia but it doesn't really help - there's a lot about causes, therapies, medications, but not much on what to do for someone who's having some sort of episode. 

Chip tries _help someone with flashbacks_ instead, and Google provides a list. It's basically everything James did aside from tell Steve he was having a flashback (if that's what it was) and ask him to describe his surroundings. 

"I think," Chip says, "we just have to wait. You know? There's not much else to do besides."

Anthea nods, looks over her shoulder at the kitchen doorway. 

"Yeah," she says. 

But it sucks though.

***

After fifteen minutes, Steve turns his head and presses a kiss to James' cheek, just in front of his ear. He puts down the mug he was holding and stands up, takes off his coat.

"Here," he says, and James stands up and takes his coat off too. "I'll put 'em away then we'll go do the…" he nods at the kitchen. Hotel California is playing. "Vegetables."

"Okay," he says. "Do you need to call Dr Singh?" 

Steve shakes his head, glances at the covered windows. 

"No, I'll talk to him about it the next time we speak," he says. "I'm due to see him around the tenth, I'll mention it then."

James nods, looks Steve up and down.

"You feelin' okay?" 

Steve rolls his shoulder.

"I mean," he says. "It was like three seconds. I knew I was in your house but I expected to see _my family_. I'm okay, I'm just…" he shakes his head, blows out a breath. "It was.…"

He shrugs, and James nods.

"Yeah," he says. "Okay. You're sure you're up for food prep?"

"Need somethin' to keep me busy," Steve answers, "otherwise I just sit in a corner and think about Before."

James nods.

"Right," he says. "Okay. You wanna do the carrots?"

Steve frowns, drops James' gaze and looks down at his feet for a long few moments.

"Yeah," he says, "that might be best."

When they go back into the kitchen, Steve's mortified, but James’ mom and dad just greet him quietly, smiles on their faces, like he didn't have half a meltdown.

"I'm sorry about this," Steve says, and James’ mom shakes her head.

“Are you okay?” she says.

Steve nods, looks down at his feet again before he can look up.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Are you okay with hugs?” 

Steve’s eyebrows go up and he glances at James, but James doesn’t really have an answer for him - this one’s on Steve.

“Uh, I mean, I’m okay with hugs,” he says, and she cocks her head. 

“Are you okay if _I_ hug you?” she says, and Steve looks at James’ dad this time.

“Uh,” he says. 

“Okay,” James’ dad says, “hugs in t-minus five? Four.”

“Oh, I,” Steve says, bemused, but this is an old one, a calculated simultaneous attack.

“Three,” James’ mom says.

“Two,” James answers.”

“What?” Steve laughs, and the three of them all hug him at once.

He goes very quiet and very still once the three of them have their arms around him, the music the only noise in the kitchen.

After a moment, James feels him ease up a little, and they all break away a few seconds later. 

“I got rules in this house,” James’ dad says. “Don’t bring the cops home, don’t use the ‘c’ word, and _own_ up when you’ve _fucked_ up. Mistakes get made and we apologize, apologies get accepted and we move on.”

“I,” Steve says.

“Given that you ain’t done nothin’ wrong,” his dad continues, “house rules do not apply.”

Steve rubs the back of his neck with his hand as he nods slowly.

“Right,” he says. 

“If you feel really bad about it, you can run KP,” James’ dad says, and Steve laughs softly.

“I believe my CO said carrots,” he says, and looks at James.

James blurts a laugh before he can stop it.

“Ha! _Your_ CO?”

“Cignificant Other?” Steve says, drawing out the sibilant, and James actually feels his face cringe but it’s nothing compared to the look on his mom’s face.

“Ow,” she says - she’s the English major after all. “Please don’t do that.”

Steve laughs a little more loudly this time, and picks up the peeler for the carrots instead.

~

Anthea and Chip go in the living room once all the prep is done. It’s taken them the better part of the afternoon, and she’s obviously ready to sit down. Steve insisted on doing the dishes, which is ridiculous, but most of what they were using could go in the dishwasher anyway. And Chip not only got the feeling when Steve said it that he was still trying to make up for something that he couldn’t help, but also that he wanted the time separate from anyone else - which Chip can’t blame him for at all. And, from what he’s seen of Steve, there’s no way he’d sit passively in the living room alone with James while he and Anthea did all the cleanup.

So he and Anthea get an eggnog each and a cookie from the cookie tree, and they sit together in the living room again. Matilda doesn’t appear, but then she’s probably just sitting on half of Becca’s paperwork the way she usually sits on Chip’s crossword. 

And it’s not total privacy, he doesn’t doubt Steve and James know that. All he has to do is tilt his head back against Anthea’s shoulder and he can see Steve standing very close to James as he dries a pot, leaning down so that he can press his nose against James’ hair, eyes closed. Steve doesn’t need to see in order to dry what’s already in his hands. 

Chip can’t hear what they’re saying, and he does his best not to read lips when Steve says something soft, but James’ head turns just a fraction, and then Steve’s shaking his, turning his face a little more against James’ hair. 

He’s a tall man, quiet in a very deep kind of way - it runs much deeper than his voice, and there’s a wariness there, too. His shoulders are broad and his waist is narrow, and the fading light from outside paints the edges of his figure where he stands next to their son. James is shorter than him, narrower, but neither of them seem anything but comfortable with each other. 

James pulls his hand from the dish-water and dries it, presses it to the small of Steve’s back instead, and Chip can see the figure from the news. He can see the man who stands with his back straight and his gun drawn, the man who stood on wrecked cars with a shield at his side, the man who stood tall and pointed at treelines on old newsreels. He’s always there - always will be, Chip doesn’t doubt that. Silver at his temples, a firm set to his jaw, Captain America was a title but Steve’s the man who wore it first, and that kind of responsibility is present, visible.

But Steve tilts his head to the side and the motion of his hands stops, and then he’s resting his head against the top of James’ where James’ head rests on his shoulder. 

Anthea’s head is against Chip’s shoulder, too, and he smiles at his son and his son’s chosen partner. Captain America is a symbol, but Steve Rogers? 

Chip’s family is made up of individual people. There’s always room for one more of those.

***

It’s cold when they set out for church. They leave the house quietly - most of their neighbors aren’t religious - and pile into the cars. James, Steve and Chip take one, and Becca rides with Anthea. Becca doesn’t like to drive at night, especially not in snow, and James is sitting in the back with Steve.

“You be sittin’ with us?” Chip asks the rearview, and Steve shakes his head. 

James’ hand is still warm in his own but the air in the car hasn’t heated up yet, and his breaths are still coming out visible.

“Can’t tonight,” he says. “I’d draw attention - you’d have Paps on your doorstep by the time you got up from breakfast, legislation or no.”

Chip nods slowly, and Steve sees him glance at James in the mirror too. James isn’t looking at Chip - James is looking at Steve.

“You’re gonna stand close though,” James says quietly, “right? For the sign of peace?”

“Sure,” Steve says softly, because he will. 

He’s more tired than he thought he was, despite the involuntary doze he slipped into after the buffet Chip and Anthea put on for dinner. He’s shaved his beard into the shape he usually wears it for church, trimmed his hair at the sides so as not to be immediately recognizable as himself, and he’s dressed nicely but not too nicely. Shirt, tie, sweater (plain) and a jacket, plus gloves and a scarf. He won’t need a coat - they won’t be out of the car for too long, and he’ll want his coat in the morning. If he wears it to both masses, someone will figure it out. 

The drive to church doesn’t take long, and the streets are mostly empty, the lights in buildings mainly out. 

There’s something strange about traveling at night like this, somewhere usually so full of life. It feels ethereal, unreal a little. It’s probably just Steve’s many issues rearing their heads but Steve doesn’t worry about Hallow’s Eve or All Saints or All Souls. No, for Steve, it’s now, when the air is cold and still and the darkness close and silent, that he sometimes feels the veil might be thinner, that the memories of the loved ones he holds in his head might be closer than he thinks. 

Steve curls his fingers a little tighter over his missal. It’s nothing - only poignancy and superstition - but he leans a little more into James and fights down the shiver that threatens. Every year is one year further from them, and every midnight mass he feels it just a little more keenly than the rest of the time. 

“One day I’ll stand with you,” James says. “You know that, right?”

Steve nods, checks to make sure Chip isn’t watching them, and leans down to kiss James softly, briefly. 

“I know,” he says. “As long as you’re ready when you do.”

Chip _is_ watching the next time Steve checks, but he’s pretty sure they got away with it, so he doesn’t say anything. Neither does Chip, so that’s a good sign.

“You’re coming home with us, though,” James says. “Right?”

“Yeah,” Steve nods. “Uh, that is…uh, Sir, I light a couple candles Christmas night. Are you all right to wait on me or would you prefer I catch a-”

Chip chuckles.

“I’m sure we can stretch to that.”

“Thank you,” Steve says to him, and then looks down at James again. “And then, yeah.”

James nods slowly. Steve doesn’t usually go to mass with James. James doesn’t usually go to mass. But it does sadden him a little that, on one of the rare occasions James will be attending, Steve won’t be able to sit with him.

Still, it’s not long. Only an hour or so. 

He’ll manage.

***

They get split up over a stoplight, but that works for them - Chip pulls in first, and then he and James wait in the car for Anthea and Becca while Steve goes inside. Steve holds his missal close and looks straight ahead, and takes his usual place. There are more people here tonight than he usually sees - but that’s always the case with midnight. The congregations from the various mass times are all gathering for the one mass that will take them from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day.

The doors at the back of church remain open - it’ll warm eventually, what with how warm the place is - but, for now, it means Steve kneels on a cold kneeler and will sit on a cold bench, clasps cold hands to ask that his friends past and present be taken care of. 

He runs through their names in his mind, says his rosary. Sometimes he says it in his head when he’s running, sometimes he’ll say it in his head while he cooks. He usually finds time somehow, even if it’s just when he’s lying in bed at night, but he feels it a little more when he says it in church.

God’s supposed to be everywhere, that’s fine. But kneeling in His house makes it a little easier to forget about the troubles of the day.

Steve stays where he is until he’s finished his prayers, and then he sits on the cold bench and opens his missal. 

Isaiah, St Paul to Titus, and the story itself - census, travel, birth, celebration. There’s comfort in the familiarity of a routine that’s stayed mainly the same since he’s been doing this. There were, of course, changes made, rules relaxed, ideas shifted. But he’s able to recognize the things he’s always recognized, remembers the prayers he always knew and relearned the ones he’s meant to participate in.

If he still says his rosary in Latin, what harm is it to a being that understands his every word, spoken or no?

They stand at the bell to signal the start of mass, and Steve doesn’t look for James or his family. He knows they’re probably close, but where doesn’t concern him. He’ll look for them during the sign of peace - there are more important things to tend to now. 

The first carol is _Joy to the World_ and, as always, Steve stands with the congregation and holds his hymnal out in front of him.

But he does not sing.

~

James is behind Steve. James’ whole family is in the next pew back, but it is James who stands behind him. Part of him thinks maybe he ought to’ve stood to one side, to better see Steve’s face, but he’s content to know that Steve is in front of him.

It feels a little like having Steve’s back.

The first him is _Joy to the World,_ and James sings it with as much gusto as he can manage at half past eleven at night in a church full of people he doesn’t usually see, with his boyfriend directly in front of him. Steve’s head, in fact, turns minutely - James only sees it because he’s looking for it - and then turns back, so Steve knows he’s there. 

But James can’t see Steve’s head move the way some other peoples’ heads move. Steve’s shoulders don’t rise and fall with each phrase the way some other peoples’ do - he’s not breathing in time. James can’t hear his voice, either, so he’s probably not singing.

James can’t blame him - it’s hard enough for James to manage, he thinks, and he’s missing two family members in particular. 

They sit after the Gloria and the Collect. James is really glad for the music they sing with the Gloria now - he’d never have learned it off by heart otherwise. As it is, he can only join in when the music’s going, otherwise he flounders. 

They listen to the readings without a problem. It’s a special occasion, so one of the members of the congregation who’s in better voice acts as cantor, and they sing the psalm, and the gospel acclamation. (Yeah, that’s right, James still remembers what they’re called.)

But Steve, when they stand for the Gospel, is slow. He stands like there’s a yoke over his shoulders, like he’s been tied to the floor. Like he’s tired. 

~

The homily is short and hopeful - at least, Steve feels hopeful - and Fr. Mulcahy delivers it with all the gusto of a man half his age. One of the altar servers has to bring him a glass of water when the incense gets a little overwhelming but, otherwise, the mass goes without a hitch, although he doesn’t sing at the offertory either, right the way up to the prefaces, and then Steve can feel his mind slipping a little.

It’s an effort to stop it - it always is at Christmas - but it’s one he has to make if he doesn’t want to zone out completely in the middle of mass. Who knows where his mind would end up?

But he can feel it there, on the edge of his perception. Fr. Mulcahy says Angels and Archangels, with Thrones and Dominions, and he can hear Fr. Connelly’s voice saying it too.

With all the hosts and Powers of heaven, and he can smell the dust and feel the chill.

When the congregants sing together, he can hear James, James’ family, the voices he knows, but he remembers others. His throat tightens and he opens eyes he didn’t know were closed to fix himself where he is.

It happens every Christmas. 

He doesn’t lose himself - he’s come far enough that he knows how to stay in this century. But it’s always there at this time of year. Candlelight on blonde hair, pale skin and a warm smile. The smoky smell of frost and the echoing silences of a church full of silent people. From later, the stolen moments in churches all over the place, the army chaplain, brothers in arms saying the same words - even if not all of them were present, even if not all of them believed.

He will miss them. All of them. Always.

It’s good to remember them like this, though. It seems, as it does every year, that they might be standing there beside him if he only turned his head. He looks straight ahead and lets himself think of them, comforted by presences he’s sure that he can feel.

~

At the sign of peace, James can tell Steve’s partially elsewhere. Steve does a good job of ignoring the fact that he knows James’ family, but he looks tired, though not too sad. James is a little surprised how well he sees it. 

Steve smiles at the people around him who offer their hands, even smiles at James, but it’s bittersweet, James knows.

“Peace be with you,” Steve says softly, and the warmth in his gaze eases James’ worry a little.

James offers the same in return, and Steve squeezes his hand a little more tightly before he lets go. 

They’re up and down for the preparation, kneel, stand, kneel, et cetera, but communion is as easy as it always is. The church is still cold but the lights are warm,the voices strong. They sing _Silent Night,_ and Steve doesn’t open his hymnal this time.

Seeing the windows black, instead of bright with colors, seeing them covered by the night instead of lit by sun, always makes James feel small, young. From the time he sat in his parents’ arms, the warm lights and cool air and dark windows have always meant that Christmas was close, and there isn’t much left of mass by the time they take their seats after communion.

Steve remains on his knees in his pew until Fr. Mulcahey is seated once more, and then he eases himself back onto the bench with a long, slow sigh. 

When he looks for his missal, for the closing prayers, James can see that he’s smiling. It’s small, and sad, but it’s there.

~

“The Lord be with you,” Fr. Mulcahy says, and it’s like clockwork.

“And with your spirit,” the whole place says with one voice.

“May the almighty God bless you, the Father,” they make the sign of the cross, “and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

“Amen,” and Steve can feel it coming back, the world around him.

He can feel the memories retreating, the images fading.

“Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your lives.”

“Thanks be to God,” and Steve finds this harder, if that’s possible. 

The hour he spends with the shadows of the people he lost, gone for another year - it’s not true, those memories are always with him. And yet, it feels like they’re returning, going back to the places he pulled them from. If he could have turned his head to see them before, it feels as though they leave his pew now with slow, careful, rueful steps.

He doesn’t look over his shoulder, there’s no-one there to see, not really, no-one whose hand to catch. Instead, he lowers his head and smiles, as as much as smiling is difficult. _I’ll see you next year._

“And a very Merry Christmas to all of you,” Fr. Mulcahy says, and Steve hears himself laugh softly, and joins the congregation in returning the sentiment.

~

James likes _Hark the Herald Angels Sing,_ and the organist is really going for it, and so he sings it with all the vim of the child he feels like - it’s Christmas, time to celebrate. 

It really is now, of course - twelve twenty. It’s Christmas. Steve’s right there. 

Steve still doesn’t pick up his hymnal, wrapping his missal in its protective covering instead so that he can fold his hands over it and wait for Fr Mulcahy and the servers to process out.

Those same congregants who were in good voice before put everything into the last verse of the carol, hitting notes James can only dream of, and it’s pretty special actually. James not sure how much of it all he believes, but it’s certainly difficult not to smile when everyone around you’s ready to shake hands and wish well, when the music swells the way it is doing now.

One or two people speak to Steve as they pass, and Steve turns to face the aisle.

“I’ll be five minutes,” he says, his voice low, without looking at them.

“Long as you need,” James’ mom says, and Steve nods curtly.

“Thank you,” he says. 

James watches him walk through the people who are clumped together chatting, shaking hands or saying ‘bless you’ or ‘happy Christmas,’ head and shoulders above most of them, his head bowed, as he makes his way to the candles.

***

Steve, when they follow him outside, is standing on the edge of the church’s grounds and looking at the sky. There are no stars tonight - it’s overcast, though it’s not snowing, and cold enough that the already fallen snow crunches sharply when James walks through it.

James comes to stand beside him, and glances at Steve. His eyes shine in the almost-darkness, but he smiles.

“You okay?” James asks, and Steve sniffs shortly, clears his throat with a plume of condensation that billows from his lips.

“Yeah,” he says, and he and James turn back together to go and get back to the others.

***

The world is quiet when they get back.

Everything feels like it did to leave church - people lowered their voices and whisper shouted and closed car doors as softly as they could. Now, James’ whole family is silent aside from whispers until they get inside and close the door - though he notices halfway up the path that Steve’s steps have slowed. When he turns, Steve is just looking at him, so James waits. Steve closes the gap between them and James wraps his arm around Steve’s waist as they walk in.

Of course, Matilda starts complaining as soon as they’re back, and Becca goes to feed her because she’ll be starting on the hot chocolates next. 

“When I was a kid,” James says, as he and Steve take off their shoes in the hallway to go and put them in the coat closet, “I always used to run in to see if Santa’d been while we were out at mass.”

Steve smiles a little as he takes off his shoes.

“And had he?” he says, all innocence. 

James nods.

“Only once,” he says, and he steps up to Steve, puts his arms around Steve’s waist. “It’s weird, my Auntie Carol said she didn’t hear a thing even though she was here the whole time!”

Steve’s arms come up around him too, although only one hand flattens against his back - the other’s holding his missal.

“Is that so?” Steve says.

“Mm,” James nods, stands on his toes in Steve’s embrace to get a kiss.

It’s only small, chaste, and Steve leans forward a little after James pulls back, not quite chasing him but as though he’s only just remembered not to. Then he sighs through his nose. 

“Merry Christmas,” he says. 

“Merry Christmas,” James echoes. “We usually put all the gifts out and then go to bed after hot chocolate.”

Steve nods, staring at him.

“Sure,” he says, and he pulls away from James. “Lemme go and get ‘em, I wanna get changed anyhow.”

James nods, gets another kiss from him, and then lets him go to go upstairs. Steve watches him until he can’t see him anymore, eyes fixed on James while he walks up the stairs.

When James goes in the living room, his mom is already arranging gifts under the tree. There’re more than James was expecting. 

“Wow,” he says. “You bought the whole store?” 

James’ mom laughs.

“Go help your sister,” she says instead. 

~

The plan had been to sit up for a while and talk, but James’ dad is tired and James’ mom is tired, and Becca says the sooner she goes to bed, the sooner it’ll be morning.

“We don’t do that night before thing,” his mom says, “although you’re welcome to open one tonight if you want.”

Steve holds up a hand. His other hand is on James’ knee, almost absently. James pays it no mind, for the most part, but he’s aware that it’s there - since Steve came back downstairs he’s been in contact with James somehow. A hand on his shoulder, knees touching, shoulders brushing.

“Oh, no, Ma’am,” he says, “don’t worry about that.”

He’s in softer clothes now, warmer ones too, and he and James have put their gifts under the tree too. Matilda has inspected them and found them adequate, and the living room feels like a capsule of waking people in a world asleep. 

James looks at Steve. Steve looks like someone who might have a headache if he didn’t have the serum and, with that sixth sense he has about it, he senses James watching him and looks back. 

There’s not much space between them, so James is surprised by the intensity in Steve’s eyes, as though he hasn’t seen James for days.

“I think I’m turnin’ in,” James’ dad says, and his mom agrees.

And so, with cheek kisses and hugs between them, James’ family bid them goodnight and merry Christmas, and go on up to bed.

James is silent for a long time, snuggled up to Steve on the couch, while they stare at the tree despite the fact that the lights are on static and it’s unlikely the tree will go anywhere. Steve’s big hand is on James’ thigh, fingers warm on his inseam, Steve’s hip pressed to his. Steve’s eyes are dark when James looks at them.

“Thank you,” Steve says, “for letting me come with you.”

James slides one hand over Steve’s stomach, presses a kiss to his chest through the various layers of clothing he’s wearing.

“Thanks for coming,” he says, and looks up at Steve. 

Steve stares at him, mouth closed, expression unreadable. James puts his head down, and they don’t say much else for a while.

~

They go upstairs together, to change and say goodnight. They’re quiet on the stairs and careful with the door, and Steve finishes dressing for bed before James. 

When he comes back from the bathroom, James means to go next, and makes it three strides away from Steve, who stands by the bed.

“James,” Steve says, and his voice is quiet, but rich with something else, something more.

Steve doesn’t even have a hand in James’ hand - his fingers are hooked in James’ palm, and there doesn’t need to be a word said between them. James was planning on staying up here with him anyway.

He nods, steps back up to Steve and kisses him softly. Steve’s already brushed his teeth, and tastes of mint, his breath is cold. But his lips are warm, his hands are warm. When the kiss breaks, Steve’s eyes don’t open. Instead, he presses his forehead to James’, turns his head a little to nuzzle James’ cheek.

“Do me a favor, kid,” he breathes, words warm over James’ cheek, his voice barely more than a whisper in the fragile stillness of a night that feels heavy with the promise of something more than the holiday. 

“I’ll stay,” James whispers, “I’ll stay.”

Steve breathes out, long and slow, a sigh that brings them closer as his body seems to shrink with it.

“I love you,” he says, and his voice isn’t quite so much a whisper, but it’s just as gentle.

There’s a promise in it as much as there was sadness in his eyes before, a warmth that speaks of something waiting.

“I’ll go quick,” James says, a promise of his own. “Get in bed, get warm, I won’t-” his breath hitches. “I won’t be long.”

Steve nods, and lets him go, touch lingering.

It’s strange, it’s so strange, with the snow outside and the house asleep, it feels like they’re the only ones awake in the world, as though the slightest noise will be heard the world over but nobody’s there to hear it, as though the outside has become a vast, empty, echoing space of cold and darkness broken only by twinkling lights. 

James uses the bathroom, brushes his teeth, but Steve’s voice thrums through his memory, the rumble of that timbre singing in his blood. He feels anxious, almost, to be away from Steve. Or, even stranger still, anxious to have Steve out of sight. There’s something about this, about having the man he loves waiting restless and unsettled at the end of the hall when he feels so cut off from the world, about having Steve so far when it feels like he’s alone. 

It’s a terrifying sensation, a chilling disconnect - he knows it’s the time of night and the time of year, the skittishness of the difficulties of the past couple of days - but he almost expects to find himself in the world alone when he gets back.

The house feels empty, the world feels dark, the outside encroaches and he misses Steve though Steve’s not twenty feet from him. 

He brushes his teeth as quickly as he can and the sensation comes up around him the way water fills a room, goosebumps tracking up his spine so quickly he almost daren’t turn around. 

It’s a rush, a panic, and a desire all at once, and he hastens back to the bedroom without a care for the creaking floorboard as soon as his hurried ablutions are completed.

“Your,” Steve says, as soon as James comes in - Steve is lying in the bed and looks just as jittery as James feels, his eyes wide, his brow furrowed - and Steve’s looking at his shirt.

James nods, fast, turns off the light and pulls his pajama shirt over his head - he knows the way in the dark - and practically dives into the bed.

Like a child who keeps their feet beneath the covers to stave off monsters who can only reach their exposed extremities, safety swallows him up under the quilt, against the mattress, with Steve. 

Steve’s shirt has buttons and James’ intention is to start on them immediately, but Steve’s on him before he can, pressed up against James as much as pulling James against him, his mouth over James’ not a moment later. His hands grasp at first, and then slide around James, skin over skin - it’s been two days, but Steve kisses him like it’s been months.

His head goes back when James’ hands roam too, his mouth falls open and, in the darkness, as his eyes adjust, James expects a moan, but it doesn’t come - it can’t, Steve won’t let it, but it’s disconcerting to have him silent.

He’s never silent. 

James kisses him harder just to hear the sounds of their kisses in the stillness, just to reassure himself that he hasn’t lost his hearing, moves his hands more to hear them travel over the fabric. Steve doesn’t want to pull away from him, and James tries three times to reach his buttons before Steve figures it out and moves back just enough to let him. He’s breathing hard but working harder to keep it quiet. He purses his lips, holds himself stiffly. 

James gets his buttons undone to get his hands inside Steve’s pajama shirt, tags clattering, and Steve arches towards him before he’s pulling them both back, getting James over him in the dark, in the bed they’re sharing, as he sinks back into the pillows with a shiver, his hands sliding up James’ back to keep them together. 

James pulls away just enough that there’s air between their mouths, Steve’s breath coming fast though James can barely hear him. Steve lets James hold his head, lets James touch him, lies with his hands against James’ ribcage, fingers fluttering. 

But then Steve’s shifting, scrabbling for something, extricating himself from the heat of the bedclothes and letting cold air in and-

Then James is momentarily blinded, and then Steve’s got James’ head in his hands, searching James’ face. The lamp is on.

Steve wants to see him.

He searches James' face with his gaze for a long few moments, something unreadable in his eyes, and so James kisses him, with everything he's got, and Steve melts into the pillows under him. He sucks James’ lower lip into his mouth, scrapes his teeth over it, sucks James’ tongue and then kisses the corner of James’ mouth, his cheek. His movements are showing, his agitation fading.

“Sorry,” he says, a breath, "I'm sorry," and James looks at him.

He turns, a controlled fall, and takes Steve with him, face to face, side by side. Steve's eyes close and James holds him when he pushes forward, brings Steve against him when Steve pushes his face against James' neck. 

“You hurtin’?” James says softly, a little out of breath, and Steve presses his face to James’ skin, his mouth.

“I love you,” he says, his voice rough.

James strokes his fingers through Steve’s hair in the low light of his nightstand lamp while they wait for the world to return. After a while, James turns out the light, and they fall asleep like that, skin to skin, tangled together inextricably.


	4. Christmas Day

James wakes on Christmas morning because Steve moves, and they’re still tangled up together, mushed close because otherwise Steve would fall out of bed.

It’s early - barely light - and Steve is looking back over his shoulder at the clock on the nightstand. When he looks back, he sees that James’ eyes are open and smiles - he looks tired, but not displeased. 

“Hi,” he rasps. 

The sides of his beard are basically back. They’re both partially dressed, too - James never put his shirt back on, Steve never buttoned his back up, and Steve pulled the quilt up to wrap it just as tightly around the two of them as his arms were around James. 

“Hey,” James says.

“Merry Christmas,” Steve tells him, and James smiles, closes his eyes to rub his hand over his eyes.

“Mmph,” he says, and then he snuggles closer. “You thinkin’ ‘a gettin’ up?”

“I gotta go,” Steve says. “I need to shave, I got mass.”

James frowns at him, lifts his head to look at the clock.

“But,” he says. “You went last night.”

Steve lifts his hand, too, brushes James’ hair back off his forehead before he puts it back again. 

“I know,” he says. “Paparazzi weren’t there last night, though.”

James drops his head back onto the pillow and sighs. Steve’s hands are warm on his back and James is enjoying the cocoon they’ve made - there’s certainly nobody else moving in the house right now.

“You’re going to mass for the paparazzi,” James says, and Steve nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “I go every year so they can snap me, keeps ‘em happy.”

James nods too, slowly.

“Not because you want to go a second time?”

Steve huffs a laugh, looks around the room.

“I’d rather be here with you,” he says. 

“So stay,” James answers, and Steve’s mouth opens, his brow furrows. 

He’s going to protest.

“No, listen,” James says, shakes his head, “if you feel you need to go? You go. That’s fine. But if you’re just there so assholes can get a good picture of you…”

Steve’s eyes narrow a little. He looks at James’ eyes, his mouth, then glances sideways, then looks back over his shoulder at the clock again.

“Commander Rogers wasn’t present for morning mass at his usual church due to the anticipated paparazzi presence, which was expected to be high considering the events of the Commander’s recent work and social calendars,” James says, and Steve rolls back to look at him again, chews his lip.

His eyes narrow, he’s turning it over in his head.

“So where was I?” he says. 

James shakes his head. 

“You’d prefer to keep that information private,” James says. “Park Avenue Clause, they can suck it. And I…”

Steve leans back a little to get a good look at his face.

“What?” he says, cautious, and James wets his lips, considers very carefully what he wants to say next.

“You’re hurtin’.” 

And he says it soft, quiet. Steve draws a long, slow breath in through his nose and sighs.

“Kinda,” he says.

James nods.

“You’re not goin’ for you, you’re goin’ for them. And you don’t owe them. You’re hurtin’, kinda, and you’d rather be here with me,” James says. “So,” and he brings his hand up to Steve’s chest, “stay.”

Steve looks at him for a long few moments, turns his head enough to look at the ceiling, thinking. Then his expression smooths out some, the line of his mouth isn’t quite so severe. His gaze turns distant for a few seconds, before he turns his head back and closes his eyes.

“Yeah,” he says, just as quietly as James as he nods minutely. “Okay.”

James didn’t expect him to do it. He expected Steve to lift his responsibilities back up onto his shoulders and carry them around like the rest of his obligations, but Steve presses his face into the pillow, then into James’ shoulder, then lifts his head and rubs his nose against James’ cheek before he settles.

“Okay.”

***

“Rise and shine, Jamie boy, bacon's almost- Oh- Uhm, I’m-”

Steve wakes because a voice he recognizes wakes him. It twigs as Anthea not a moment later and, while she’s suddenly realizing James is not alone in the bedroom, Steve is busy running a mental check - he’s not naked, they’re not having sex, they’re not on top of each other, this is a perfectly reasonable position for them to be in first thing on a Christmas morning.

Although it’s not really first thing - it feels like it’s closer to mid morning. 

“I am so sorry,” Anthea’s saying, and James is blearily coming awake, just a little less quickly than Steve, extricating himself from the perfectly reasonable and appropriate embrace they were sleeping in.

Steve's tags clink when they fall off where they were stuck to James.

“Mmmhhhi,” Steve says, scrubbing a hand over his eyes, “hi, sorry -”

“No, _I’m_ sorry,” Anthea says, just as James is saying ‘hi mom,’ “I didn’t realize you were in here; when James wasn’t downstairs I thought-”

“Christmas,” Steve says, “merry, hey, no, don’t worry-”

“Happy Christmas, Mom,” James is saying, sitting up on the other side of Steve. “It’s, what’s happened? Oh-”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about-” 

“I would have knocked if I thought-”

And they’re talking over each other for a few seconds until Steve registers the word ‘bacon’ and stops talking because his brain has decided that’s the only relevant thing, “Bacon?” and James snickers.

“I’m so sorry,” Anthea’s saying, and so Steve shakes his head, stifles a yawn with the back of his hand and says,

“Please, don’t worry about it - we’re decent and it’s your house - you said bacon?” She did, he can smell it. And then he’s _mortified,_ systems coming back online sector by excruciatingly bad-mannered sector. “Oh my God, I’m sorry, that’s not what I- That was so rude, I’m sorry-”

“I’m good with bacon!” James says, and Anthea backs out of the room.

“It’s almost on the table!” she says. “Yes! Bacon, okay. We’ll be. Downstairs.”

“Don’t wait for us,” Steve calls after her. 

She laughs. 

It’s only after about twenty seconds that Steve’s brain catches up.

“Oh, shit,” he says, “no I mean, I’m gonna shower!”

James just pushes back the covers as he laughs and goes over to the dresser to decide what he’s wearing today.

~

James’ family is waiting for them when they go downstairs, despite Steve asking them not to. They’re sitting in the living room, not around the table, and there are several serving plates of bacon sandwiches cut into neat little squares.

“Morning!” Anthea says when they walk in.

James waves.

“Hi. Which is crispy?” he says, and then he looks back over his shoulder. “Steve - some are crispy, some are soft, white, brown, and seeded - any preferences?”

“Uh,” Steve says, and James nods.

“Okay,” he says, and then he’s piling little squares onto a plate for Steve - some from each plate that’s on the table.

Oh God, that’s a lot.

“Honey,” Steve says, and Chip’s head turns, Steve notices. 

“I got it!” James says. “It’s fine, right?”

“Right,” Chip says. “Coffee?”

“Uh,” Steve says again, and James says,

“Tea. We got it? Like…just ordinary-”

“Yeah!” Becca says, pushing herself up off the couch.

“Oh, gee, I-” Steve manages, and James turns around and holds out the plate of accumulated bacon sandwiches. “James.”

“Goll- _y,_ mister,” James answers, “I sure hope you ain’t-”

“A’right, a’ _right!_ ” Steve answers, takes three steps to meet him. “Knock it off.”

“Knack it oh-aff,” Becca echoes.

“Git oudda heah,” Steve answers without thinking about it.

“A’rite a’ready,” she says, and he points at her.

“Fuggedaboudit!”

Except they end up saying that one together, and then there’s a ringing silence.

“So tea?” Becca says, and Steve wets his lips, clears his throat.

“Thanks, that’d be great,” and James chuckles, evidently amused by the change of tone.

Anthea and Chip are smiling too and Steve tries not to accidentally spontaneously combust as he takes a seat.

~

They eat in relative silence, for the most part, Steve with his cup of tea, everyone else with their coffees. The bacon is delicious, as is the bread, and Steve finds that the different types of bread and the different textures of the bacon are quite enough to satisfy him, at least for the time being. 

Matilda appears halfway through and sits on the floor to give him sad eyes. He puts a tiny piece of bacon on the side of his plate for when he’s finished and says,

“Shh,” when he gives it to her once they’re done, but he’s also sitting in the living room with James’ entire family, and she makes a squeaky, croaky noise when he presents it, so literally no-one is fooled.

***

After breakfast comes the part of the day Steve’s dreading. Anthea stands up and says,

“Okay!” as she slaps her hands on her thighs. “Gifts!”

Steve looks at James, unsure, and James shakes his head, puts his hand on Steve’s knee.

“It’s okay,” James says, reading Steve like a _book_. “We all go at once. Me first!” 

And he pushes up off the couch.

“One for everybody, we all open together. So nobody’s watchin’ you.”

Steve knows he’s blushing, scrubs his hand over his face in some effort to ward it off, and smiles tightly.

“Great,” he says, and James starts checking tags for the things under the tree.

He does exactly as he says - one gift for everyone, from various people - and hands them out, then sits back down next to Steve. Steve knows at least three of them - James picked the ones he’s wrapped to give to Chip, Anthea and Becca. He doesn’t pass Steve something he’s bought himself, though - instead, he passes Steve a small package about the size of a credit card.

Steve frowns, turns over the label. From ‘Chip + An.’ Okay. 

Everybody tears into their wrapping paper - actually, that’s not true. James’ whole family aside from Chip is, much like Steve, a family of tape-pickers. Anthea, and Becca, _and_ James all open their gifts by carefully peeling the tape back and removing the paper like sleeves. 

“Huh,” Steve says, and does the same because he always has with fancy paper. 

He and Buck used to wrap with newspaper if they could afford gifts at all. On the rare occasions they managed brown paper, Steve treated it like gold leaf. Call it a habit he’d never quite been able to break.

Chip doesn’t bother with that, and tears straight into his instead. It’s the book James bought him - the one that Steve signed - and he grins.

“Great,” he says, holds it up so they can see. “Thanks!”

“Steve signed it,” James says, and Steve looks at James.

“Really?” he says, although he does feel a smile tugging the corner of his mouth.

“What?” James says, all innocence, and leans in to kiss him briefly. 

James has, for himself, picked up a little cube. The tag shows Steve that it’s from ‘Dad,’ and James opens it to find a new little fake succulent plant just as Anthea opens her vase.

“Oh!” she says. “This is wonderful, thank you! I can grow the cat grass!!”

Steve smiles, and then finds that he’s holding what looks like a credit card but is made of metal and has odd shapes cut out of it - he’s seen these, it’s a multitool that will fit in his wallet, but he’s more likely to fit it into his suit belt. 

“Hey, I’ve seen these,” he says, “this is great, thank you.”

“That’s okay?” Anthea says, and Steve nods.

His camera, his tech, the furniture he puts together himself, some of the projects he’s got going - the more he thinks about it, the more uses he can think of.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I do a lot of stuff that needs- Like, I…” he holds it in his lap and smiles down at it. “Ha, that’s great, thank you.”

Becca gets her movie boxed-set, and holds it aloft with a cry of satisfaction.

“Aw yeah, adventures!”

Steve frowns, cocks his head.

“Didn’t they make another one?” he says, fully aware that they did, and Becca’s smile drops off her face instantly.

“No,” she says.

He can’t hold back the startled laugh. That tells him her opinion of the newest film anyhow.

Becca, it turns out, loves her Krethan pendant, and her poster, too. She gets pajamas and textbooks from her mother and writing supplies from her dad. Everybody gets a calendar - Steve included. 

Chip winds up with a harddrive from Anthea, a special kind of close-work lamp with an attached magnifier from Becca, and the ceramic frying pan from Steve and James in addition to the book.

“I didn’t sign the frying pan,” Steve tells him, and Chip snorts.

Anthea loves her vase, her diary, the necklace she gets from Becca and the book she wants to read from Chip. 

But James, well. James, for starters, gets a Krethan poster from Becca (which he thanks her for without unrolling so Steve would put money on it being _that kind_ of poster), Steve gets him a lamp that looks like the moon and coffee that’s cinnamon roll flavored, and James’ parents, in a surprising turn of events, get James coffee syrup, a book he asked for, and the collected sheet music of the main themes from ~~super~~ **human**. For piano.

“You,” Steve says, frowning at James. “Play?”

“Not,” James says. “Like not…no, I mean. I mean I _can_ but I’m better by ear. And I don’t usually.”

“Do you not usually because you can’t get a piano into your apartment and I don’t have a piano?”

James rolls his eyes.

“I have a keyboard in my closet,” he says. “If I wanted to play, I could cart it around. This is great though, Mom, I’ll try ‘em later!”

Steve blinks a few times.

“Right,” he says. 

He didn’t know this. How did he not know this?

Steve ends up with quite the haul himself. 

As well as the multitool, James’ parents give him eucalyptus shaving cream for sensitive skin (“ ’Cause you gotta shave twice a day, right?” Chip points out) and a tactical flashlight that allows you to change the light from wide to narrow beams manually, and will strobe, and will flash SOS, and will turn red. It’s also got measurements along the side in inches and centimeters, and it’s less than the size of Steve’s hand. Yeah, he’ll be putting that in his regular kit, too.

Becca gives him a heat pack - one of those oat things you can shove in the microwave - but it’s shaped like a travel pillow. He already knows it’ll do wonders for post-mission tension. And there’s one from her labeled with ‘Steve & James’ with an actual ampersand, that turns out to be two mugs. The mugs are two-toned, as though they started out crackle-cream and got halfway dipped in colored paint. The faded red one says ‘Big Spoon’ in faded red cursive on the cream section, and the mint green one says ‘little spoon’ in mint green, and Steve can’t help grinning when he sees them. He tilts them towards James so he can see. 

James laughs. “Any given day,” he says.

But the things James has bought…The first is a lensball - a solid, hefty globe of clear glass that he can use to take photographs through (and leave out as decorative when he’s not using it as a wide-angle lens), a bottle of gorgeous emerald green ink that has gold flecks swirling about in it - it’s been a long time since Steve did monochromatic ink studies but his fingers itch immediately - and…

James hands him the last one, unwrapped, without preamble. 

It’s a star made of salt dough.

“James,” he says softly, and then looks at him. “When…?”

“When you were nappin’,” he says. “I thought a star made sense, y’know? Didn’t want to steal your angel’s thunder. I-Is that-”

Steve huffs a laugh, though it sounds wet to his own ears, and tugs James into a hug. 

“Both my Jameses on the tree too, huh?”

“Can’t get rid of me,” James grins, and Steve just shakes his head, settles his palm on James’ cheek.

“Never,” he says. “Thank you.”

James brushes it off - has a habit of so doing - but Steve cradles the solid little star on a ribbon in his hands, thumbs tracing the lines. 

“Thank you,” he says again, and James reaches out and closes a hand over Steve’s wrist, squeezes briefly.

“So!” he says loudly after a few moments. “I’m totally making a cinnamon roll mocha, what’s everybody else having?”

And they set to moving around again, getting up for cookies and mince pies, putting in their drinks orders, and generally getting back into their day, gift-giving having been seen to for this year.

Steve asks for whatever’s easiest, and winds up with the same as James (it turns out to be really nice coffee - made in New York, too!), and sits quietly in the living room with Matilda (and her new catnip mice) and the tree, in a house that’s a home to the man he loves.

He thinks, he’s pretty sure, that he can learn to love James’ family. 

In fact, he’s pretty sure he’s a good portion of the way there already.

***

After gifts, and after Steve and James have washed the mugs after coffee - they insisted - Anthea spots them in the kitchen being snuggly. She tries not to be too invasive but it’s…

Nice, really. Nice to see when Steve wraps a hand around James’ wrist as he puts the last mug away, and tugs him back to kiss him, smiling. It’s nice that James leans back to make Steve follow him even as Steve slings his arms around his waist, nice that they talk with their faces so close together, smiling, eyes only for each other. 

Steve’s younger than she is, of course, at least in years lived, and James is her only son, but they do look happy. The worries she had before were mostly just the product of shock and panic, but James looks at Steve like he’s never been happier, and Steve looks at James like he’s never seen a more wonderful sight.

James says something, and Steve tips his head back with a laugh that’s soft, brief. When he looks at James once more, he lifts one hand to brush James’ hair back, smile fading a little.

It’s back a little a moment later, but then he lowers his head, nodding while James is saying something. He answers - she sees him - and then he kisses James.

And then he turns his head and gets closer and-

Ah, okay.

Still kissing, she knows when to give them privacy.

“What’re we doing?” Becca asks, and she tilts her head as she goes over to the tree.

“Walk?” she answers. “I thought we could go out, work off some of that bacon.”

“Ahuh,” Becca nods. “That’s cool. Are we leaving right now?”

Anthea glances back at the kitchen and then shakes her head.

“No,” she says, “I think we can wait a little bit first.”

~

Becca sees them on her way upstairs and doesn’t linger but it’s cute. But she’s got her camera app open before she remembers this isn’t just her older brother’s BF being cutesy with him, and puts her phone away instead. It’d make a really disgusting (seriously, from the way they are, they must be using tongue and just ew) picture to send Jaboobs later if it weren’t for the fact that she’d then have a photo of Commander Steven G Ex Captain America Rogers playing tonsil hockey with a dude half his age - she’s not stupid. 

Her luck’s bad enough that she’d probably literally lose her phone the next day, and then the two of them would be all over the tabloids, and then Steve - and, worse (although not much worse, come on, it’s the OG Captain America) - James would never speak to her again.

She goes upstairs to grab her camera instead - she’s gonna grab the good one (because yeah she has two and one was like three times as expensive) and her spare battery, her extra SD. There’s no way she’ll use a whole battery or fill up a whole card but like it doesn’t hurt to be prepared. 

She has her gloves, hat and scarf combo that she got for her birthday, and she grabs her satchel too, and she hears Steve come up the stairs a moment or two later. She knows it’s Steve because there’s only one person in this house whose gait she doesn’t recognize.

With hindsight she’ll probably realize she could have been seriously injured, but her door is opposite James’ door, and at the time, it seems like a good idea. 

She tiptoes over because she’ll get there just about the same time Steve will, and sticks her head out at the last second.

“HI!” 

Steve flails away from her with a,

“SHI- _HA_ -ho wow,” that’s louder than he probably meant it to be, hand over his heart, and then he cracks up, thank God, leaning on the wall as he laughs, eyes squeezes shut.

“Ready?”

“What?” James yells from downstairs.

“Just grabbin’ my gloves,” Steve calls, and goes into James’ room.

Becca puts her camera strap over her neck to go downstairs, and she reaches the base of the stairs, right by the front door, and turns to go down the hallway and get her coat from the-

_“FUCK!”_

Steve’s face is _right by her face,_ how the _fuck-!_

“Rebecca!” her mom yells, presumably about the language, and she actually sees the laugh bubble up from Steve’s chest.

He looks like he’s about to spit a mouthful of coffee before he turns away.

“Yeah, yeah, you got me,” she laughs, and he sits down on the stairs. “Sorry mom!”

James appears a moment later.

“What happened?” he says, and Steve snorts, can’t even help it.

“Your boyfriend stepped through a portal behind me,” Becca says.

“Yeah, he does that,” James answers, “you’re pretty quiet for a big dude.”

“Payback’s a beach,” Steve says, and James looks at him.

“You’re a doof,” he says, and walks over to Steve.

Becca rolls her eyes and goes to get her coat while James and Steve do some more canoodling on the steps.

“You know, I nearly took a pic of you guys before,” she says, “when you were playing gettin’ all up in each others’ faces in the kitchen-”

“Becca,” James says, and she rolls her eyes.

“I didn’t, Jay Double-Bee, I’m not an idiot. But I could’a.”

“Aw,” Steve says.

She sees James turn to look at him wordlessly. 

“What?” Steve says, and she gets her coat out of the closet.

***

This is, Steve thinks, what he wants.

The air is cold but he’s wearing gloves and a scarf with his coat, and two sweaters underneath. No hat, but that’s because he doesn’t have a hat.

“I’m getting you a hat,” Chip said when he found out.

Steve meant he didn’t have one with him, but he’s not going to correct him, not when Chip was so nice about it.

The air’s crisp and the world isn’t quite so muffled today. The sun’s out, although reportedly not for long, and so it’s bright and clear, almost blindingly so. They still see barely any traffic but the park isn’t far, and then it’s trees and snow like something out of a Christmas card. Some of the trees have lights, there are footprints in some places but, for the most part, they might as well be the only people in the world.

He’s also arm in arm with James, who’s just as wrapped up, and the path they’re on is relatively clear.

Chip and Anthea are ahead of them, Becca way out in front, and it’s peaceful, not quite isolated, more like….secluded almost.

“So how’s Christmas with your boyfriend?” James says very quietly. 

Steve’s not quite on alert - on the one hand, snow can muffle approaches but, on the other, it never helped anyone in Europe when Steve had superhearing, so it’s unlikely to help any paparazzi hide now. But he doesn’t worry about that - James’ parents won’t even have heard, and they’re less than ten feet away.

He nods slowly, looks around. 

“I’m glad I’m here,” he says. “Thank you for asking me.”

James waves a hand.

“Ehh,” he says. “As if I wasn’t gonna ask.”

Steve chuckles, leans down and shoves him a little so that they take a couple of steps sideways together.

The crunch over the less disturbed paths, and walk slowly as a very spread-out group. Chip and Anthea are walking arm in arm, too, and Becca’s getting a close-up of some crystals that have clung to a low-hanging branch.

She adjusts her settings as she goes, and he can hear the camera clicking - she has a proper DSLR unlike Steve, whose camera is mainly for fun. 

“What’s she studying?”

“Art,” James says, and Steve feels his head whip around to look at James.

“Excuse me?” he says. “And why didn’t you tell me this, oh my God, are you serious?”

“Remember who you’re dating,” James smirks, and Steve tuts at him.

“As if I’m forgettin’ an ass like that,” he says. “But this is- I mean, I can totally help with that. I-If she wants.”

James shrugs.

“I’m the wrong guy to ask,” he says, and Steve nods.

“Right,” he says, but she’s not so far ahead. “ ‘Ey, Becca!”

Becca straightens up and looks at him from over by a holly bush.

“Yeah?” she shouts.

Chip and Anthea are looking at him as well, and he looks at James.

“Hang on,” he says, and decides to go over instead, given that yelling at her probably isn’t really the best way to go about it.

She’s off the path, and he crunches over a little unsteadily - there’s grass under the snow and the ground’s uneven, and the last thing he needs to do is fall flat on his face. 

Crunch, crunch, crunch and he’s there, and a little out of breath as well.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hey,” he answers, “so you’re studying art?”

She leans past him and _looks_ at James.

“Traitor!” she shouts.

Steve feels his eyebrows go up and looks at James.

“Uh,” he says, “I don’t have to-”

“I’m kidding,” she says. “But can you blame me? It’s like, it’s _you._ Would James go up to Billy Joel and tell him he can play piano?”

Steve blinks, shakes his head a little.

“I,” he says. “What? What do you mean?”

“You’re like…Famous People From New York you’re at the top of the list. And you’re an _artist!_ You gave me a book when you’d known me like an hour, what do I-”

“Are you kidding?” Steve says. “I’m just-”

“I study art, you’re an artist - you know, it’s fine. Just don’t ask to look at my sketchbooks.”

Steve laughs. He can’t help it.

“God, do you even know who you sound like?” he says.

“James?” she answers, with another of those looks.

 _“Me!”_ he answers, and she looks vaguely surprised, leans back a little to look at him. “You sound like me when I was your age.”

“Are you serious right now?” she says, but she’s fighting a smile. “When you were my age?”

Steve drops a heavy hand onto her shoulder.

“Listen, Son,” he says, and she puts her hands on her hips.

“ ‘So, you don’t want people looking at your sketchbooks’ ” she says, and Steve looks at her, horrified.

“I did one set of those PSAs!” he says, turns to look at James. “One! It was community service!”

“You asked for that community service!” James yells, but he laughs first.

“That is not the point!” Steve answers, but then he looks back at Becca. “Actually, no, that’s really not the point - the point is, I didn’t know you were doing an art degree.”

“Well,” Becca says, shrugging, “y’know. Where am I gonna go with it, so.”

“What’s your medium?” he says. 

“Graphics, mainly? Most of my stuff’s computer based and I, y’know. The. Photography too. But it’s. Y’know.”

He thinks about it for a moment. 

“Okay,” he says. “And listen, I’ll drop it if you want me to drop it. But I got a lotta years on you and I got advice if you want it.” He leans a little closer. “Money if you need it.”

“Don’t you already got a sugarbaby?” she says, and it startles him into a laugh. 

“A’right, I’ll drop it,” he says, holding up his hands before he turns and starts crunching back to James. “You clearly know more about photography than me anyway.” He glances back at her. “Maybe I’ll call you up for advice.”

She laughs, rolls her eyes, but doesn’t look too put out as she goes back to her photographs.

Not for the first time, Steve wonders what her college tuition fees are like.

~

They stay out for a while, because it’s clear and quiet, the sun low in the sky just because of the time of year. 

Steve doesn’t look uncomfortable per se, but his steps are slow, he sticks closer to James. 

“You okay?” James asks him softly, and Steve lifts his free hand and forms a fist to blow into.

“It’s cold, huh?” he says softly, and James looks carefully at him.

“Yeah,” he says. “Are you okay?”

Steve nods quickly, hunches his shoulders and blows out a long cloud of condensation.

“Yeah,” he says, “yeah. Just. Y’know, yeah, I’m fine.”

James frowns, lifts his other hand and rubs Steve’s upper arm for a moment. 

“You sure?” he says, and Steve nods, looks at him.

“Just cold,” he says. “I’m tired, you know? But it’s…” he looks around,at the snow and the sky, at James’ mom and dad, and Becca, before he looks at James again. “It’s a good day.” He nods a little, looks around again. “It’s a good day.”

James walks with him in silence for a little while.

“We’re heading back,” he says softly, because it feels like the right thing to say - the whole walk is a loop, and they passed the midpoint a while ago. 

Steve lifts his hand to cover James’ where it rests on his arm. He smiles, and there’s something sad in it, but something else there too.

“Yeah,” he says.

~

Before they leave the park, Steve beckons Becca over, points at her camera.

“You want me to take one of you guys?” he says, and she looks a little strangely at him.

“Uhm,” she says. “Why?”

Steve shrugs.

“No reason,” he says. “Just, it’s Christmas. It’s nice out. Thought you might like a picture.”

Her eyebrows go up and she looks at her parents. 

“Uh, sure?” she says. “Yeah, sure.” 

She checks the settings before she hands it over, and he puts the strap over his neck just in case. She goes back to Chip and Anthea, and James trudges over to join her, everyone bundled up and red-nosed and rosy-cheeked.

“Okay,” Steve says, lifting the camera. “Everybody say ‘Merry Christmas!’”

“Merry Christmas,” everybody dutifully recites, and Steve takes a picture. 

He takes another while he pretends to check the camera.

“Hang on,” he says, and Becca grins.

Anthea looks mildly amused, and Chip laughs.

James rolls his eyes, but looks happy, unworried.

Steve takes the picture then, the family Barnes together and happy, smiling in the snow on Christmas day. It’s harder than he thought it’d be to keep the smile on his face when he takes another to hide the fact that he took a second when they weren’t expecting it, harder still to smile when he gives Becca her camera back.

James has seen, Steve knows, and tugs Steve back a little as they set off walking again, Becca out in front, Chip and Anthea not too far behind her.

“I love you,” James says, and Steve isn’t quite sure he manages to smile that time.

He nods nonetheless, not trusting his voice, sets his hand over James’ hand, and they walk home together.

***

The evening moves quickly around them, sweeping over the remnants of the day like a cloak. The cloud comes with it, and they eat their evening meal close together and warm, perhaps a little tipsy, but happy.

It feels, with so much of the lead up - months of stores touting Christmas colors, four Sundays’ worth of Advent Masses, movies on TV and streaming services, the food in the supermarkets - that it’s passed in the blink of an eye.

But James says his family keep the tree up for a while. Steve’s will be up until Candlemas, for certain. And he still has almost another week before he has to be on duty.

Becca disappears upstairs for a little while, and then reappears with something that Steve thinks at first might be a book, but it’s not. 

It’s a picture frame, in which is a picture. He sees it’s two figures before he recognizes them for himself and James, wrapped up in winter clothes this afternoon, the sparse, white blanket of snow stretching out behind them, the trees in the background blurred and indistinct, huge swathes of circular blurs in different colors. She must have been miles away.

But the picture is of them, there’s no mistaking it. They’re standing almost in an embrace, having turned towards each other, hands on each others’ arms. Heads close together, turned almost completely away, Steve is looking at James, mid-sentence, and James’ eyes are closed as he laughs, pale, wispy clouds around them from the heat of their breath in the air. There’s some light at play in the foreground too - she must have photographed them from behind a tree or a bush or something but it’s…

“Becca,” Steve says softly, and then he looks at her. “Thank you.”

“Well,” she says. “Wanted to give you one more thing for Christmas. Plus, what else am I gonna use an art degree for?”

“Oh God,” Steve laughs, but she accepts the hug he offers.

“You can tell me all about oils in exchange,” she says. “I definitely need some help with that.”

“Sure,” he says. “Any time.”

~

By the time they’re winding down, Steve has had Merry Christmas texts from everyone aside from Nat - from whom he presumes the single _Missed Call - Caller Unknown_ is from.

They say their goodnights relatively early, all of them tired from a day that’s gone so quickly and still somehow taken so much out of them. Matilda has decided she’s staying with Becca, so Steve pushes the door to when he and James have brushed teeth and used the bathroom, and they get dressed for bed together.

“You sure you’re okay?” James asks. “I know you were cold today.”

But Steve looks at him for a very long time, head tilted to one side.

“I’m sure,” he says. 

They get into bed, turn out the lights, and snuggle down under the covers. 

“Merry Christmas,” James says, one last time before midnight passes.

“Merry Christmas,” Steve says back.

Despite the weather and the ambient temperature of a room with two windows and a hardwood floor, under the bedclothes isn’t cold and, tangled together in the dark and the warmth, it’s easy to fall asleep.


	5. Saturday, Thursday, and Everything In-Between

James isn't aware of much besides the fact that it feels like his brain is floating in the middle of a whole lot of nothing. He's warm and he's safe, and the quilt is just heavy enough to be comforting. 

The pillow is soft beneath his head, and his body comes back to him in increments. it's very warm in some places where it's just warm in others - the backs of his knees and his underarms, between his legs and at his hip and at the base of his throat. It's when hot air skitters over his skin once, twice, a third time - a rhythmic bloom of warmth up one side of his head - that he recognizes it for Steve's breathing. 

He keeps his eyes closed but he smiles. He moves his fingers just a little and feels skin and fabric, slowly begins to understand where his limbs are. Steve's body is strong and hot against him, lines and ridges, muscle and, against his throat, stubble. 

He moves just a little, to get closer, and Steve's body moves in response to his own, presses a little closer, Steve sighs heavily, his fingers flex against James' back where they're tangled together. 

James turns his head just a little towards Steve's, nose in Steve's hair, and Steve's head turns too, a reaction, towards his. It's not quite a kiss that James gets against his throat, but there's a shift, a change. 

"Mmh," Steve says, his voice low and sleep-soft, and then one of his hands is moving, one of his legs, drawing a swathe of warmth in its wake. 

James squeezes him with all the limbs around him, the soft bedclothes and the warmth of the darkness, and Steve wraps himself a little tighter.

"Mmh, time issit?" Steve mumbles, and James doesn't know, he hasn't looked. 

"Night," he says, and Steve nods minutely, his hair shifting against James' skin. 

"M'rn'n," Steve retailates, and James draws his hand down over Steve's back, over his ass and the back of his thigh, and then all the way back again. 

Steve's leg is halfway between his, he thinks, unless it's an errant pillow - but no, errant pillows do not feel like that.

"Hmm, hi," James says softly, and Steve draws a sharp breath in through his nose as James shifts his thigh.

They could sleep, they both could. They could forget and stay wrapped up and warm, and this would be nothing but a dream to them come morning.

He drops his hand instead, squeezes Steve’s cock through soft cotton, and Steve’s chest expands against him, Steve’s eyes squeeze shut, his head goes back, his mouth falls open. James knows they can’t make noise, he knows they need to be quiet, but part of him wants to push, wants to make it so that Steve _can’t_ keep quiet. 

He moves slowly, doesn't leave Steve's embrace but gets his hand inside Steve’s pajama pants instead, pushes back so that Steve turns onto his back in the bed, and then plants his other elbow above Steve’s shoulder so that he can put his weight on it, so that it leaves that hand free to cup the back of Steve’s neck as he starts to stroke. James is awake now, for the most part, and Steve is fast catching up. 

They don’t kiss for five seconds, for ten, and James can feel the brush of Steve’s lips against his own, touching without moving, breathing each near-silent gasp Steve makes, in time with the rhythm of James’ hand.

James tightens his fingers, and speeds up, and Steve shakes his head, wincing, James can see him in the dark. It’s not a no, it’s a desperate attempt to keep quiet, and James realizes suddenly that Steve isn’t wearing a condom. 

He closes his teeth over Steve’s chin - not a move he’s made before - enough to draw his attention, stilling his hand though he doesn’t remove it and, when he opens his mouth again, Steve looks at him, pained, a question.

James pushes up, sits up, and Steve shakes his head, pulls him back, kisses him - okay, it’s James’ intention to blow him and swallow, but he can’t if Steve won’t let him leave. He tries again and Steve’s grip on his wrist is iron this time - not enough to hurt, but enough that James doesn’t think he’s going to get his plan in motion.

For a second, when Steve kisses him with a sharp intake of breath through his nose, James isn’t even sure Steve’s going to let him keep going. 

Now his hand is free, James grabs for the waistband of Steve’s pants, and Steve plants his feet, lifts his hips so James can get them down, and then grabs James’ head and kisses him again. 

Steve’s cock his hot in his hand, Steve’s hips flex hard upward, and it’s so disconcerting for Steve to be so quiet, so unnerving for all of his pleasured sounds to be so absent. 

James tightens his fingers, speeds the motion of his hand, and the room, reality, is fuzzy around him, but sharpening with every second,

The light from the street comes in through the flimsy blind - always has done - and he can see more the longer his eyes are open. 

Steve's face, Steve's gorgeous mouth open on silence, his eyes shut against the onslaught, they were asleep two minutes ago and now they're like this - James loves this, the secrecy of it, how close they are and how the rest of the world has no idea.

Steve stiffens beneath him, hands sliding down James’ neck to his shoulders, from his shoulders to his upper arms, he breaks the kiss, his head goes back, his mouth falls open and James _sees_ his mouth make the motion - _oh_ , he doesn’t say, gasping instead, _oh,_ without a sound - and then he’s curling forward, James almost gets his nose broken. A second time, and the bed creaks a little, Steve's tags clink, the muscles in Steve’s thighs tremble, James can feel them, but there’s silence otherwise. 

James pushes back a little to see him, to get a good look at him and the sight of Steve’s come on his abs in the cool, dim light of the outside world never fails to turn James on, but he only admires it for a second before he manages to get away, ducking down to start licking it up.

Steve’s torso shifts under him, Steve’s still breathing hard and keeping himself silent, and James gets his tongue in every valley, over every ridge. He’s barely done when Steve pulls him back up, shoves him to one side - the bed creaks again and James says,

“Uff,” because it knocks the air out of him, and then Steve’s fingers are pulling at his waistband instead, and Steve’s sucking a hickey onto James’ pectoral, and Steve’s-

Oh, Steve’s -

James looks down as he sinks his fingers into Steve’s hair, mouth falling open on a moan he barely bits back in time. Steve’s shrouded by the bedclothes but his eyes are glowing embers in the darkness, two points of white heat, which James knows because he’s staring straight at him.

Steve is older than James, and it’s visible in ways James adores - the gray at his temples, the texture of his skin, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, the shield callouses that are worn and rough - his hands are on James’ hips, and his mouth is around James’ cock, tags against James' thigh, and he stares unblinking when he hollows his cheeks and sucks James down.

James’ whole body arches upward, his hands come up off Steve of their own accord like claws in the air, and then he’s torn between grasping Steve’s hair and slapping his hands down on the bedclothes to grab for an anchor. He knows which is louder but, as soon as he has his hands in Steve’s hair again, he’s holding tight without being able to stop it. 

When Steve was all tied up on the office chair, he said to James it was hard to keep quiet when you wanted to make noise, it made pain worse if you couldn’t shout about it - and he’s right, James has seen studies since when he looked it up after - and this, this, Steve’s sucked him off before, Steve’s fucking _amazing_ at it but this feels like he’s going to breathe in so hard he’ll burst his lungs, like he’ll tear Steve’s hair out at the roots.

He is, he discovers, powerless - Steve’s head moves regardless of how tightly James holds his hair, Steve keeps James flat against the bed despite how hard James tries to thrust upward (despite how little James can help himself trying), and every time James looks down at him, Steve is staring straight back.

James shakes his head, just like Steve did, and Steve knows just as well that it’s not a no, it’s just the only thing James’ body can manage.

“Nhh,” James says, and Steve moves, like a predator, like some kind of terrifyingly calculating thing about to eat James alive, one hand lets go of James’ hips - he doesn’t need both to keep James under control - and his arm just _appears_ , a shadow that just keeps on going, he’s so long-limbed-

And then his hand is over James’ mouth, and the only sound is the noise Steve’s mouth makes on hard, wet flesh and the _shiff_ of the bedclothes over his head.

At one point, when James pulls especially hard, Steve follows, his head going back to bare his throat, the light catching him as the cover slips back, his mouth open, his eyes closed - he looks halfway to coming a second time - and then he pulls against James’ grip and gets back to work and James presses his face up into Steve’s palm, tries to breathe, wishes he’d brought his _handmade gag_ but the smell of Steve’s skin is so much better than even the smell of leather, and he’s breathing through his nose just fine even though it feels like he can’t get enough air.

“Mm,” he says, because, there, there it is, oh wow, this is fast-

Steve shakes his head as he works and James doesn’t know if he means him to be quiet but firstly it works and secondly he’s going to have no control over it in about ten seconds.

James tries to pull him back, up, but Steve doubles down, and James manages to gasp, and gasp, and then -

He -

He hears the weird gurgle he makes as he crunches up too, just like Steve did, reaches out blindly for a pillow as it _doesn’t stop_ , and can’t find one because his fingers don’t work. 

Steve’s hand presses harder and James’ eyes roll back and then, then Steve’s pulling off. Not completely, though - he removes his hand from James' mouth and James blows out a breath and then sucks another in like he’s drowning, replaces Steve’s hand with his own just to be sure as he starts to come down.

Steve, meanwhile, is cleaning James up with his _tongue_ , and he doesn’t leave a scrap of skin untouched. He keeps his mouth on James, tongue sweeping over his skin, mouth gentle over sensitive flesh, until James’ cock is completely soft, and then James finds Steve’s head with his hands, cradles his skull while Steve inches up the bed.

But Steve doesn’t come up all the way. He stops when his head is about stomach height, and rolls off to one side with a jingle of tags, his arms around James’ waist, breathing hot and fast against James' skin.

James stares at the ceiling as he starts trying to get his breath back, at the dancing shadows of the trees across the paint, and he closes his eyes for a moment, his hand in Steve's hair, Steve's arms around him, Steve's mouth against him. 

Just for a moment, as the warmth of his cocoon comes up around him again.

Steve is so warm, James' body is so heavy, his ceiling is so far away and he realizes, as he slides backwards into sleep, that sleeping is what's happening. But, by then, he's already slipping under, with Steve wrapped around him, and nothing else matters at all.

***

The day after Christmas is a Saturday, and goes much like Christmas did. Getting up late, lounging around and doing very little, enjoying each others’ company - they don’t go out for a walk, though. Steve thinks about it, but passes out shortly after lunch, slumped into the corner of the couch.

James helps his mom with what little cooking needs to be done and they eat as a family again, because they’re close and because it matters. He takes Steve’s hand under the table when Steve gets quiet, but Steve’s okay, he can see that. Contemplative but not sad.

In the evening, Steve asks Becca about her degree, asks about some of her work.

“Billy Joel, Famous New Yorkers, we talked about this,” she says, and he holds up his hands.

“No, no,” he says, “I’m not saying hand over your sketchbooks or the cat gets it, y’know, just. What drew you to it?” 

And she tells him about the things they did as children - James was the writer, the mathematician, the scientist. She was the artist - writing too, sure, but she liked images better for the stories.

“Worth a thousand words, you know?” she says. 

Steve tells her he wishes - reports are easier to write these days, but he never got past the feeling he’d’ve been better off drawing pictures to supplement Bucky’s reports instead. 

“We worked as a unit most of the time,” he says, “wasn’t much I could tell ‘em that the boys hadn’t told ‘em already. But _pictures?_ ” He shakes his head. “You had maps or schematics in a place and I got a good enough look, pretty soon you’d have ‘em back at HQ, too.”

He knows he sounds smug - he doesn’t care. 

“So you’re like a camera?”

He laughs.

“I’m more like a rubbing,” he says. “You’ll get a good impression but you’ll be waitin’ a while if you want a full-color render. I mean, I can do it, but oils take forever to dry.”

It’s Becca who laughs this time. 

“What about you?” he says. “I know you’re doin’ art but what art d’you do for fun?”

She colors up so fast he’d worry if he didn’t know exactly what it meant.

“Uh,” she says, voice wavering. 

Steve covers his mouth with his hand as he laughs this time.

“I, uh,” she says. “Y’know. There’s that show that we, uh. We watch?”

Steve has to put a hand on his stomach, still full from dinner, and he nods.

“Okay,” he chuckles, “I can take a hint.”

~

Steve goes to bed before Becca but after James’ parents, and James follows him up.

“You tired?” James says, and Steve rolls his shoulder in a shrug. 

“I’m,” he says. “It’s. Run down, I think. Not that I’m not having-”

“It’s okay,” James says, cutting him off before he can try feeling guilty about it. “Run down is okay, I get it. They’re my parents and _I’m_ exhausted.”

Steve gives him a small smile.

“Do you want me to go away for a little bit, give you some space?”

Steve shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “I want you to get into bed with me.”

“You want squishin’?” James says, and Steve rolls his eyes but smiles anyway.

“Yes, I want squishin’,” he says. “If that’s-”

“Don’t finish that sentence, Steve, you know it’s fine. I’m gonna brush my teeth and then I’ll come back. Okay?”

Steve looks at him, looks him up and down, and nods slowly.

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

It doesn’t take James long and, as it turns out, Steve’s perfectly happy to lie snuggled up next to him, half asleep, while James reads the book his parents bought him.

***

Sunday, James wakes up because Steve’s in pain, he can _hear_ him.

He sounds like he’s walking on hot coals, like he’s been beaten, and James flips over in the bed, horrified, to find out what’s wrong.

“Steve!” he says - it’s eight-thirty, and Steve’s in his pajamas and bent almost double. “

“S’okay, s’okay,” Steve says, hand out towards him. “It’s okay, I’m just…”

He lowers himself back into the bed and leans forward. 

“What’s happened?” James says, and Steve shakes his head.

Then he laughs.

“I didn’t go running today,” he says. “Or yesterday, and I…really should have.”

“You…” James says. “Didn’t exercise?”

“Yeah, I lock up if I don’t loosen up,” he says, and James can’t help the noise he makes trying to hold back a laugh. “Yeah, yeah,” Steve chuckles.

“I can help you with that,” James says, and Steve heaves his whole body around, stiffly, to look at him.

“You’re gonna help me get fifteen miles in the next hour?”

James feels his eyebrows raise. 

“I mean, I’ll count your push-ups,” he says.

“Tell you what,” Steve answers. “You behave yourself I’ll do shirtless pull-ups.”

James feels his mouth open, too.

“Really?” he says.

“No,” Steve answers.

“Aw, come on-”

“I’ll wear a tight shirt though,” Steve says, and James purses his lips.

“Fine,” he says. “But shirtless pull-ups when we get ba- when,” and then James realizes what he can say, realizes what he’s allowed to say. “When we get home.”

A slow smile blooms over Steve’s face.

“Yeah,” he says. “Sure. When we get home.”

~

Steve doesn’t run fifteen miles. He jogs around the neighborhood a few times, because he hasn’t exercised properly for a few days and jumping right back in wouldn’t be a great idea.

He heads out to church with Chip and Anthea in his usual Sunday disguise, and then, when he next walks into James’ bedroom, James is looking at Commander Rogers.

It gives him a moments’ pause, actually.

“Oh,” he says, and looks Steve up and down - Steve who wears a suit without a tie, clean-shaven, broad-shouldered, and barely suppressing a smile. “He _llo!”_

Steve laughs, shakes his head and plants his hand on the mattress, leaning down over James - God, he smells amazing - to bring their faces very, very close.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” he says, and then he kisses James slowly, languid and indulgent, before he pulls back. “I’m gonna change. Then you wanna come downstairs and count those pull-ups?”

~

James does. Steve does pull-ups on the bar in the doorway to the garage, lifts himself up, up, and, when Steve decides he wants a little more weight, James wraps himself around Steve’s feet and Steve lifts him, too.

Becca comes into the utility room to feed Matilda halfway through, and just stares at them, mouth agape. James does his best to yell,

 _‘OMG CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS’_ with his eyebrows, and he must do a pretty good job of it because, mouth agape, cat food held momentarily forgotten in one hand, Becca stares, and slowly shakes her head.

~

For their evening meal, Steve makes mac ‘n’ cheese the way he did for James - all those herbs, the breadcrumbs, the _bacon_ \- and he’s almost done when he turns, elbow out too far, and takes out a white mug that’s sitting on the counter.

“No!” he yells as it falls. _“Shit.”_

Chip comes in to check that he’s alright, and Steve’s standing there with the mac ‘n’ cheese in his hands, and a white mug in pieces around his feet.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Man, I was doing really well, too.”

Chip laughs.

“You still are. Good job you're wearing slippers.”

Steve frowns at the dish he holds, and sighs through his nose.

“What color was it?” Becca’s voice asks from the living room.

“Plain white,” he answers, and Chip takes the dish from him so he can step out of the circle of shards to go grab something to clean up with. “Thank you.”

“Plain white’s the disposables,” Becca says. “Don’t worry about it. I only put out the good cups for people I like, no big.”

Steve chuckles.

“Mac and cheese?” he says, and there’s a pause.

“Have I ever told you how much I love you?”

Steve laughs before he knows he’s going to.

~

“I want the recipe for this,” Becca says through a mouthful.

Anthea can’t tell her off for talking with her mouth full, because her mouth is also full.

“Yeah,” Chip says. 

His mouth is also full, and Anthea sighs through her nose.

“Sure!” Steve says and, mercifully (although not surprisingly), he had finished his mouthful before he spoke.

***

Wednesday, Steve’s antsy, James can tell. He’s walking places a little too fast, speaking a little too quickly. He’s tapping his fingers, he’s chewing his lip and, for a little while, James is worried. He knows the past few days have been hard on Steve, despite his family’s willingness to accept him, and he knows a big part of that is proximity.

Steve is distracted, on edge, and he has to check a couple of messages during the day that have him frowning at his phone. 

In the afternoon, James’ mom suggests a walk, and Steve smiles tightly.

“I…am gonna have to pass,” he says. “I’ve got some stuff I gotta look over, make sure it’s all in order. I’m…not on duty but…”

“Sure,” James’ mom says, and Steve nods, but his smile’s already fading. 

She looks at James with a question in her eyes, but all James can do is shrug - he doesn’t know what’s going on at the tower to make Steve look this frustrated unless Steve tells him, and Steve may not be able to.

And it’s James’ intention to leave Steve to his work - he certainly looks as though he wants to be left alone. James can’t blame him, either - he’s a man who lives alone, spending the most difficult holiday of the year around a boyfriend and three other members of his boyfriend’s family, whom he doesn’t know well. 

Plus a cat, with whom he’s slightly more familiar these days.

And leaving him alone is the plan right up until James stretches - arms over his head, shirt riding up, head back as he groans. And when he looks at Steve, Steve is _staring_ , face like thunder, at James’ stomach, presumably where there was skin showing and _ohhh._

Right, it’s been like three whole days since they fumbled about in the dark in James’ room, on Christmas. It’s been a _week_ since they had sex back at the conversion. 

Steve isn’t obvious about it. It’s a passing glance, and James just happens to catch the heat in his expression. For all James knows, there is something work-related going on, but he hedges his bets and makes a decision.

“God, I think I ate too much,” he says, and then lets it lie for a little bit.

Steve goes upstairs to work on his laptop, at James’ desk, and James mom and dad and sister start getting ready to go out. 

He rubs his stomach, squints a little. He makes sure to groan once or twice while everyone’s getting ready to go out.

And it’s as his mom is shrugging into her coat that she asks him what’s up. He shakes his head, scrubs a hand over his eyes.

“I don’t feel great,” he says, and he sits down heavily on the couch. “How far’re we thinkin’?”

However far will be too far. James’ mom says maybe down to the water, maybe just around the park. It’s a good forty-five minutes they’ll be gone, either way, and James shakes his head.

“I think I’m gonna grab a nap,” he says.

His mom smiles a little, brushes strands of hair off his forehead. 

“Okay, honey,” she says. “I’m gonna have my phone if you need anything.”

And he smiles a little. 

He feels like a dick for doing this, obviously - he doesn’t like lying to his mom but he also doesn’t think the truth would go over too well. And if he told her his actual plan and Steve found out, Steve would likely never be able to look her in the eye again.

“Thanks, Mom,” he says, and he heaves himself off the couch to stand at the door and wave them off. 

He makes sure he leans on the doorframe, blinks slowly, and sighs heavily.

Then, as soon as he’s shut the door behind him, he races to the shower.

~

Steve has emails, he wasn’t being untruthful. It’s just that they’re not as urgent as he might have implied.

Not that he doesn’t like James’ family - of course not - but he is on best behavior for them, and it is tiring. Not that he thinks they’d like him any less if he weren’t all-polite all the time, not that he suspects for a second they’d turn him out if they figured out he needed a little space. But, if he says it, then they know, and they might feel responsible. If he says it, they might think he’s not enjoying himself, might think he doesn’t want to be where he is. And that’s not accurate. 

But his libido is itching under his skin, his wants twisting up in a knot in the pit of his stomach, and he’s in a house full of people, a house with very thin walls. He can’t afford to do anything about it, not really.

He plans to jerk off a few times - hard and tight-fisted and as merciless as he can manage on himself - once the house is empty, just to take as much of the edge off as he can. But, even though he knows he heard the front door, he also heard movement after that, which means the house isn’t empty yet. Given that he’s not sure how quiet he’s going to manage to be, he doesn’t want to risk a thing until they’ve gone.

Ten minutes after the front door, after the footsteps, he hears more movement, more footsteps, and then he hears behind him the bedroom door opening.

He’s in James’ swivel chair so he turns around to glance at -

James is wet and wrapped in a towel, standing in the doorway with the bottle of lube in his hand.

“Uh,” Steve says when he double takes, and James, easy as anything, drops the towel.

“We got forty-five,” James says, and Steve feels every apprehension flicker out like guttering flames, feels the implication rush up his spine.

“You’re sure?” he says, kind of frozen with the hope of it. 

James nods.

“Yep,” he says. “We’re alone for the next half hour, easy.”

Steve swallows hard, looks him up and down, wets his lips.

“You’re _sure_?” he says, and James runs his teeth over his lips and smiles.

“Why don’t you come fuck me?” he says.

Steve nearly breaks the desk in an effort to comply, shoving away from it to cross the room in two huge strides. He yanks his sweater and his shirt off at the same time, tags tinkling, to throw them a moment later, and the only reason his hands aren’t on James when they actually touch is because he’s busy fumbling with his fly when James kisses him, and Steve moans into his mouth because he can’t help it, James’ fingers sinking into his hair.

“Mhhnah,” he says when they part briefly, but then he’s got his tongue against James’ tongue and _then_ he’s got his fly open, which means he can shove his pants and his underwear down in one go - thighs, knees, calves, whatever - and grab hold of James instead. 

He gets his hands around James’ thighs and _lifts_ and James is smart, James is way ahead of him, James' legs come up around his waist, over his hips, James' arms over his shoulders. He smells like soap and salt skin and he’s warm, his hair is wet, his skin tackier than Steve’s just because it’s damp, his legs hot around Steve’s body, his dick up and hard between them. Steve’s whole body wants him, head to toe and everything in between, Steve’s veins want to reach for him, Steve’s skin feels electrified, goosebumps rising in the wake of James’ hands.

Steve can’t see while he’s kissing James, and he’s not about to stop just to look around, so he uses memory to figure out where the nearest bit of nice, flat wall is – it's the other side of the chest of drawers – and then shuffles in that direction, fabric still around his ankles, and gets James up against the plaster in the next five seconds. It's a bit of a bump, but their teeth don’t knock and James laughs through his nose instead of complaining so Steve's fine to keep doing what he's doing, and what Steve is doing is trying to eat James alive.

“God,” James says, and Steve scrapes his teeth up James' throat – James is taller than him like this - gets his mouth over James’ pulse, scrapes his teeth over James’ ear and soothes with his tongue.

“Tell me,” he says, breath hot as it comes back against his face, “please, did you-”

“I prepped,” James says, and then he's dropping the bottle of lube on the top of the chest of drawers and the practicalities are gonna be the death of Steve. “I prepped, you can fuck me-”

Steve lets go of James with one hand, holds it out under the pump bottle, and James presses it down to get a shit-ton of lube in Steve's hand. 

Steve slicks James' cock with the first handful, strokes a good few times just to feel James' legs tighten around him, just to watch James' head go back against the wall, his mouth fall open on a startled groan of pleasure as his fingernails sink into the backs of Steve's shoulders, and then he kisses James just to taste him.

“God, I missed you,” he says, and James just makes pretty noises for a little bit.

The next handful they coordinate, Steve slicks his own cock with – he's so hard even his own hand, cold and wet with lube, is enough to make his knees weak.

“James,” he says, and James spreads his legs because he knows Steve's holding them, thighs in Steve's palms, body right there and open.

“Yeah, fuck me,” James says, and Steve knows James is doing it because he knows what it does to Steve, but he's also beyond caring. 

He's careful when he pushes in, but then he's letting James' weight do the work for them, giving James just enough room that he sinks down at a reasonable pace.

“Oh,” James says, “ohn, fuck, you're-”

Steve's just as blindsided by it, pleasure so sharp it makes his ears ring, so intense he can't keep his eyes open, and he feels like something unreal, like something animal, kissing James open-mouthed – he doesn't even wait. He starts fucking up into James like his life depends on it, pressed as close to James' body as he can get, breath punching out of his lungs with every movement. James has no leverage, nowhere to set his feet, nowhere to plant his body, so Steve lifts him, holds him steady and pulls him down when he wants to – James' weight is easy to carry and easier still to manipulate.

It's fast, brutal, a hard, driving rhythm Steve could pull back if he tried but hopes he doesn't fucking have to-

“Ohn, yeah,” he gasps against James' throat – James is starting to sweat already, he can smell it, he can taste it when he gets his mouth on James' skin again. 

James echoes him in sentiment, wordless cries when Steve gets his angle right, clawing at Steve's shoulders like he can merge the two of them if he just pulls hard enough. 

“That's it, baby,” he hears himself telling James. “That's it, you're mine, _fuck_ yeah-”

James says, 

“Steve, Steve,” but that’s about all they manage because then they’re trying to catch their breath, all squashed up against the wall under Steve’s weight, and Steve manages to concentrate enough not to put James straight through it. 

James’ head is over Steve’s, Steve’s trying not to catch James’ chin with the top of his skull, and he pauses to better situate his feet - he’s standing on the cuff of his pants and his heel keeps sliding outward.

“Fuck,” James gasps, and he looks away a second, Steve is trying to figure out if he can get his feet out of the fabric without having to move either of them too much. “God, maybe we should shut the door-”

Steve manages, gets his balance right and extracts one foot and then, leaning into James, he pushes the chest of drawers sideways with his foot until it hits, closes, blocks the door. This time, when he puts his foot back down, it’s on bare wood.

“Ha, fuck,” James laughs, and then Steve sets off again, better this time, his face in the crook of James’ neck, James’ hands clutching at his head, his shoulders, the back of his neck, his arms-

“Ahn, fu- oh, you-”

“Yeah,” Steve says, “yeah,” and it’s, God, he feels so good-

He’s glad there’s nobody downstairs ‘cause he can hear the noise they’re making - like a headboard banging the wall, like jumping up and down on an upstairs apartment floor.

 _Thump, thump, thump,_ and James is laughing when he’s not moaning, letting Steve take his weight and Steve loves it, James is nothing to Steve like this, light as a feather. He keeps going for as long as it takes, and James just takes it, just moans and grasps and takes it and they don’t say anything for five minutes, seven, Steve’s concentrating hard and James is halfway out of his head with it.

Steve gets closer with every minute that passes and, though he knows it’s maybe ten minutes, it feels like no time at all.

“Uhn, fuck,” Steve says, feels himself struggle for breath, feels his lungs fill and his face screw up and then he has to remember his fingers, his hips, James needs to breathe, James will need to- _“Oh fuck-”_

He comes hard, fast, on his fucking toes with it, shoving James up the wall as his ears ring, and he thrusts up hard a second time because pulling back sets off another wave.

And then he’s mashing his face against James’ shoulder and trying to figure out how to get enough oxygen into his lungs to stay conscious and upright.

“Fuck,” he says, but he takes maybe ten seconds for it, out of breath, before he gets to work again. 

Maybe not up against the wall, it’s not fair on James’ back, but he backs up and turns instead.

“Oh!” James says, gasping in shock, limbs suddenly wrapped around Steve like an octopus as the support he was getting from the wall disappears.

Steve has him - Steve’s still _inside_ him - so James isn’t going anywhere that Steve isn’t a hundred percent in control of. 

He turns them around and then lays James down on the bed, perpendicular to the headboard because James’ bed has that footboard as well so only the sides of the bed are accessible, and then he kisses James, pushes his body down over James’ body, and feels James open up to let him - shoulders dropping, legs spreading, his whole frame relaxing. He kisses back, mouth open, eyes closed, moaning softly, and Steve grapples with him a second, getting James’ legs unwrapped from around him.

“Ah?” James says, but Steve’s not leaving, that’s not what he’s doing, not at all.

He grabs James’ legs under the knees and drags him until his ass is just about off the bed, and then bends James’ legs upward - it’s not quite folding James in half, but close enough. His hands still under James’ knees, he folds him up, pushes them outward, and then he gets right back to it, holding James open as he holds him down. His tags, stuck to his chest before, swing down and narrowly avoid smacking James in the chin.

Steve’s dick curves upward naturally all by itself, which means, like this, every thrust scrapes over James’ prostate. 

James makes a wheezing, desperate noise, and arches his back, throws his head back against the quilt, and starts grabbing for fabric, everywhere his hands land, fingers in claws, until he manages to drag the edge of the quilt towards himself from above his head, and holds on. 

Steve snaps his hips forward, listening to each of James’ sounds break over every jolt, and James looks like he’s in pain.

“ ’Kay?” he pants, and James whines.

“Don’t stop, _don’t stop_ ,” so Steve doesn’t, doesn’t even slow down.

It’s always been this way - what he lacks in duration he makes up for in repetition and stamina. He pulls James’ legs close together and supports them with his forearm instead, hooked up under James’ knees so he can reach everything he needs to, and wraps his fingers around James’ cock. 

“Uhn!” James says, and doesn’t kick out purely because Steve has his legs. 

One foot comes up against Steve’s shoulder though, not pushing him away but just _there_ , just something to push against, and Steve doesn’t slow down for a second. The bed is moving, it’ll end up squawking across the floor if he’s not careful, not that he can’t put it back, not that either of them care at this point.

Steve bends his knees just a little, gets an angle that’s better still, and James writhes on the bed, makes a warbling, high-pitched, absolutely _filthy_ noise, and comes up his stomach between his legs, on the backs of his own thighs, on Steve’s forearm.

It slides into his navel from his stomach, down the backs of his thighs onto his ass, and he’s wet with Steve’s on the inside when Steve pulls out, so Steve wraps James’ sticky legs around his hips to save the bedspread when he leans down to kiss him.

James kisses back like his life depends on it, and Steve looks around. He can use his shirt to wipe off - it’s just a white shirt, he’s packed at least another two. After that, well. The only thing James has had inside him until now is Steve’s dick, and he cleaned off his own hands in Europe during the war enough that he doesn’t give a fuck about his own taste. 

He gets James mostly clean on the outside, licks his lips, and then sets to work.

***

Steve rolls off him, onto his back on the bed to stare at the ceiling and the gauzy fabric there.

“Fuck,” he pants, and James is breathing just as hard. “How long?”

James squints, lifts his head to look at the clock on the nightstand and then drops it back onto the pillows. 

“Ten minutes maybe? After that it’s any time.”

Steve nods, swipes a hand over his face to get rid of the sweat.

“I’ll go first in the bathroom,” he says. 

He’ll wash, brush his teeth, makes sure he doesn’t smell like sweat and come.

“Yeah,” James says. “Wake me when you get back.”

Steve laughs, feels ready to sleep himself, but he heaves himself onto his feet, and tugs the bed back into place with a scrape of wood on wood. He pushes the chest of drawers back into place, too, and then hears a very mournful yowl from outside the door.

“Yeah, sweetie, come on,” he says, and opens the door to Matilda, who immediately starts sniffing the air, okay, he’s airing the room next.

He closes the bedroom door behind her and grabs his bathrobe before he opens a couple of windows, wiping James off with his shirt again, tugging a blanket up over him before he goes. Matilda doesn’t have any interest in the outside and, with any luck, the room’ll air a little before anyone looks in on James.

He’s fast in the bathroom - benefit of an army training - and then comes back to the bedroom with a glass of water, his shirt (now dampened) and James’ toothbrush, with toothpaste.

“You need the bathroom?” he says, and James blinks blearily at him.

“Uh,” he says. 

“If you need it, you can go. If not though, I brought you your toothbrush.”

“Oh,” James says, pushing up onto his elbows. “Thanks.”

Steve nods. The room is getting a little cold but, with two windows open, there’s a nice flow-through that should help. James brushes his teeth, spits into the glass which he’ll take to the bathroom later, and Steve wipes him down a third time, with the now-damp shirt. 

“You can sleep if you want,” Steve says, because he worked James hard, but James shakes his head.

“No,” he says, yawning. “I skipped out on the walk, I gotta at least pretend I want to be around my family.”

Steve chuckles, presses a kiss to James’ forehead, and then helps him onto his feet so they can both dress. Steve’s tugging his pants over his underwear when James says,

“There’s a wet patch on the wall,” and Steve’s head whips around, eyes searching.

“What!?” he says. “How!? You were facing _me_ -” And then he sees that James means where his wet hair was rubbing the wallpaper. 

He looks at James.

“You did that on purpose.”

James grins.

“Lucky nobody comes in here or I’d have to put my poster up.”

Steve shakes his head as he rolls his eyes.

They finish dressing, and James is pulling on his second sock, Steve entering his password into the laptop, when the front door opens.

Matilda hops off the bed with a small noise of interest, and James lets her out. When James looks at him, Steve bobs his eyebrows and stands.

“Timing!” he says. 

~

When they go downstairs, James walks carefully, and tries not to blush. 

It’s not obvious. They cleaned up, got dressed, aired the room, made sure their hair was presentable. Now they’re in the living room, his mom and dad making coffee and grabbing cookies, Becca on her phone in the corner, and it’s so weird, it’s like…it’s a secret, obviously but it’s so- 

Nobody can tell, as far as James knows. 

His mom might guess, because she’s perceptive and James will probably forget to fake how ‘bad’ he feels, so eventually she’ll notice he and Steve were alone in the house for an hour and the only result is that James was obviously faking being ill and Steve is about a million times more chill.

But what James is most aware of at this point, or the two things, really, are that, firstly, Steve is behaving like molasses right now - pliant and close and draped under James and looking like he’s about to melt into the couch - and, secondly…that…

James isn’t sure he even wants to think about it but, his ass is so sensitive. He can feel the gentle ache of a really good fuck, and his inner thighs are going to be sore for a while - moreso tomorrow - but he’s still hyper aware of the fact that he was covered in lube very recently, in some very delicate places which are still very tender.

Steve’s arm is around back of him, his waist, so that Steve’s huge left hand rests heavy and possessive on his stomach. Steve’s just about asleep, having slept badly, and fucked hard, and been anxious - turns out there really was something going on at the tower but it was solved without him - and isn’t even trying to hide it. He sprawls on the couch next to James, spread out and satisfied, eyes closed, expression open and easy.

And James is sitting next to him, well aware that they were skin to skin less than half an hour ago, with a tender asshole just in case he forgets. 

“You’re trouble,” James murmurs.

Steve snorts.

“You’re just figuring that out?” he says, but it’s slow, and mumbled, and James puts his head down on Steve’s chest while Steve becomes one with the couch, as is well within his rights considering he doesn’t have a thing to worry about for a least another few days.

***

Grant and Delilah turn up on Thursday, and Steve is passed out on the couch when they arrive, because he’s been sleeping a lot.

He comes awake when the front door opens, and then pulls a face at James.

“You didn’t wake me,” he says, and stands up, swaying a little, smoothing his hands over his sweater to get rid of the wrinkles.

James puts his arm around Steve’s waist as his aunt and uncle walk in, and Steve looks down at him as he feels James’ fingers tighten in the back of his sweater.

“I didn’t know when they were getting here,” he says, almost biting it out, and Steve leans a little closer, puts his arm around James’ and kisses the side of his head.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says softly. 

He pulls James a little closer, and then Grant and Delilah are walking in.

“Hi,” Steve says, shakes Grant’s hand, leans in to kiss Delilah’s cheek.

“You look like you just woke up,” Grant says, and James tuts.

“Yep,” Steve grins. “It’s the food and the weather - I keep trying to hibernate but so far, no dice.”

Grant laughs, surprised.

“Is our hospitality that bad?” Anthea says, and Steve goes a little pink but smiles, conceding defeat.

~

That’s the afternoon James plays the piano in the dining room. Steve’s aware of music - recognizes it for one of the pieces from James’ playlist. Vienna, he thinks, and then Souvenir. 

He considers going in, but he can hear very well from where he’s sitting in the living room, and knows that walking in would put James off.

He sits and listens instead. Considers where in the conversion he could put a piano.

***


	6. Crossover

They’ll go home - _they’ll_ go _home_ \- after brunch on New Years’ day.

That way they can ring in the new year together, James’ family and Steve, but still have a little time to themselves before Steve goes on duty on Friday night.

They’ll go back to the conversion, where _they live_ , and unpack there before they head to the tower. 

James’ key, Steve tells him, works in both places. James lives with Steve Rogers in the coolest places he knows. But, better than that, James lives with his long-term partner in the gorgeous homes they’re sharing. 

“I love you,” James says, as he folds his clean laundry back into his suitcase.

Steve looks at him, a little startled - they’ve been packing in silence for the most part and he obviously wasn’t expecting James to speak.

“I love you too, sweetheart,” he says, grinning broadly.

He really is gorgeous.

“You’re gorgeous,” James tells him, and Steve’s face crinkles as he laughs. 

“What’s brought this on?”

James scrapes his teeth over his lower lip and smiles as he shakes his head, looks away - he knows he’s blushing. 

“I was just thinking about going home,” he says, and Steve chews his lower lip a second, too, looking James up and down.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice low, soft. 

Then he laughs, and hooks his arm around James’ waist, hauls him close and kisses the side of his head and his cheek. James pretends to struggle but really just wiggles around until he’s facing Steve, looping his arms around Steve’s neck instead so they can kiss properly.

They won’t pack their pajamas, or their toiletries - much like before they left the conversion to come to the house in the first place - but, if they get most of everything done today, they can spend tomorrow just enjoying the day. 

“You know, I got stuff for you,” Steve says. 

“Ooh, stuff for me,” James says. “Is it stuff for you too?”

Steve laughs softly, flattens his hands on James’ back and nuzzles his face so he can kiss him again.

“Some of it’s for me too,” he says, and James feels his whole face wrinkle up when he smiles.

For a couple of minutes they sway and kiss and James plays as hard to get as someone can when they’re really enjoying being held and kissed, and Steve pretends he’s got no idea what James is doing.

“Stand still,” he says, bending James backwards, “what’s happening, where you goin’?”

James grins until Steve kisses him (and still even a little bit then, too.)

~

“Are you wanting to head to crossover mass?” Chip asks, passing Steve a mug to dry, and Steve wrinkles his nose, shakes his head.

“I think I’m okay,” he says. “It’s…” he squints out of the kitchen window. James and Becca are having a snowball fight in the garden. “Tends to be somethin’ I do when I’m by myself. It’s a,” he says, and he looks at Chip. “Like a…comfort. You know?”

“Yeah, you go for the community.”

“Yeah,” Steve nods. 

“That’s fine - lemme know if you change your mind, I can drive you.”

“Thanks,” Steve says. 

Becca’s got greater accuracy but James is better at making snowballs, it seems. 

“You doin’ okay?” Chip asks, and Steve draws a deep breath, feels his eyebrows raise.

“Yeah,” he says. “Thanks. I’m…it’s good, I’m good.”

“You had a good time?” Chip presses, and Steve smiles.

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “Yeah, I have. It’s been nice - it’s been good for me, I think.”

“Mmm, well you’re pretty good for our boy, so it’s only fair.”

Steve lifts his head a little, tilts it on one side.

“I try to be,” he says. “He’s good to me, too. I’m lucky to have met him.”

Chip leans over, points one soapy finger at Steve, narrows his eyes.

“And don’t you forget it,” he growls, and Steve laughs. 

~

“Do you like…” Steve says, “go outside or something? Or, what do you guys do, you watch the ball?”

“Yeah,” Becca says - she’s gotten changed ‘cause she and James were both soaked through. “Glass of somethin’ nice, watch the ball drop, sing a bit, go to bed.”

Steve nods.

“Sounds good to me!” he says. 

James is sitting by the fire with a piece of ribbon and a Matilda who seems more interested in watching James drag it around than trying to catch it herself.

“What is this, a spectator sport?” James mumbles.

Her pupils get big but then they go little again. She sits down.

“You guys eat first or…?” Steve asks.

“James, your supersoldier’s hungry again,” Becca says, and Steve claps his hands over his face.

“I _meant_ ,” he says, “does anyone need helping setting up dinner, or do you guys…uh. Not eat?”

“That’s the weirdest question you’ve asked since I got here,” Grant says.

Delilah kicks him and he grabs her foot and tickles the sole. She is not ticklish, and he seems to care not at all. 

~

As it stands, dinner is the same sort of buffet they had earlier in the week - little cold foods, of which they can have as much or as little as they like.

They curl up mainly in couples and eat, sharing quiet conversation, but James finds - as he always does at eleven o’clock on new years’ eve - that time isn’t passing quickly enough. 

He finds he’s tapping his feet and his fingers impatiently, because Steve slips his fingers under James’ where they’re drumming on his knee, and holds his hand.

“Can’t wait?” he says, and James chews his lip. “Think of it this way, this year is the year we met.”

James feels his mouth drop open.

“Well now I’m sad,” he says, and Steve laughs, a twinkle in his eye.

“Okay then,” he says. “In an hour, you’ll be able to tell people we met last _year_!”

James squeezes his fingers.

“It’s like an entire _hour_ ,” he says. “What the hell do we do for an hour?”

“I’ve got a few suggestions!” Grant says in a voice that’s too deliberately seductive for James’ taste.

Seems it’s too much for Delilah, too - she rolls her eyes and props her head up on her hand.

“I’m sorry,” she says, in that long-suffering way she has. “I don’t know who raised him, your dad is so well-mannered.”

“Yeah well you guys are in the room next to mine so keep it down at least.”

“That depends, you gonna move your bed away from the wall?” Grant retaliates.

And then, to James’ surprise, it’s Steve who answers.

“Please - I can lift a car with one hand. His bed was on the other side of the room about ten seconds after I got in there.”

Becca guffaws and Grant looks a little stunned.

“Right,” he says. “Well that told me!”

“Can’t speak to how it sounds down here - give me forty-five minutes and we can find out?”

“Forty-five minutes?” James scoffs, and Steve jabs him in the side.

“I’m so glad you’re kidding,” Anthea says, hand over her eyes. 

“How do you know he’s kidding!?” Grants says, and Chip lifts the hand he has around Anthea’s shoulders.

“A house this old?” he says. “You’d hear it for sure.”

Steve points at him - _right_ \- and Grant looks at Delilah.

“We really _will_ have to keep it down!” he says, and Delilah rolls her eyes so hard her eyelashes flutter.

~

They stand when it gets to midnight. Watching the TV to see the ball drop, broadcast worldwide though it happens less than half an hour from where they stand. 

The streets get so full every year that, if you stand on the very, very top of Stark Tower at midnight, you can see people - although Times Square itself is blocked from view by the other skyscrapers - waiting for the ball to drop. If you stand outside, you can _hear_ them, too.

But this year, instead of at the tower, instead of in Church, here he is, in the Barnes’ family’s living room, with his best guy, a glass of Asti in hand.

Because it turns out that _most_ of James’ family don’t like champagne - not just James and Becca.

James puts his arm around Steve, and Steve’s grateful for it. Much like Christmas, it’s not always easy.

“You okay?” he asks quietly, while the family half-congregate around the television. 

They shuffle forward, waiting.

Steve nods.

“It’s new. We’re…moving forward, it’s good. But sometimes…That song you were playing,” he says, and he’s not sad but his throat’s tight nonetheless - _“TEN!”_ the crowd on the television yells. “ ‘Every year’s a souvenir.’ ”

James is tucked up against Steve’s side, and chooses that moment to press his face to Steve’s chest because Steve’s head is too far away for a kiss.

“Yeah,” he says. _“SIX!”_ “I love you.”

Steve looks down at him. 

“I love you too,” he says.

_“THREE!”_

Steve kisses him.

_“TWO! ONE! HAP-PY NEW YEAR!!”_

James’ family has joined in by then, too, but Steve’s not strong enough to pull away from James as the clock ticks over.

That is, until another four or five seconds later when Grant and Chip start singing _‘Auld Lang Syne.’_

“Sho-o-ould _AULD_ acquiantance _BE_ for _GOT_ -”

Chip and Anthea embrace and start dancing, Grant and Delilah too. Even Becca, with a nonplussed Matilda over her shoulder, whose ears are swiveling with all the noise from the program and James’ family.

On the television, fireworks light up the sky over Manhattan. 

Steve’s smile feels wobbly, but he sways with James, too. It feels, as it always does, as though something’s fallen away, as though - like the shadows that turned from his pew at midnight - the memories are retreating for another year. 

Another year further from them, like steps forward he can’t retrace. One more step forward, into a future he’s making for himself and James.

He glances at the others. Anthea’s eyes are wet, Becca’s nose is red. Grant and Delilah aren’t singing any more and have, instead, put their heads on each others’ shoulders. 

Bittersweet.

“I love you,” he says, and his voice rasps. 

James’ smile is watery too. He goes to speak, but presses his lips together a moment later, and settles for a nod instead.

***

“It’s been wonderful,” Steve tells them as they stand in the doorway. “It really has, I can’t tell you how much it’s meant to me.”

“Well, we’ll certainly have you back next Christmas if you can get away,” she says. “Don’t even think about going somewhere else.”

He smiles, leans forward, and kisses James’ mom’s cheek, shakes James’ dad’s hand. He gives Becca a hug - Grant and Delilah, to whom he bade farewell a few minutes before - wave from the living room window, with Matilda looking curious on the windowsill. 

James hugs his mom and dad goodbye, and also Becca (like _okay_ , if he _has_ to), and then it's time to go. They wave as the cab pulls out.

“So we’re going back to _our_ place, huh?” James says through his teeth as he smiles at his family, and Steve is a very warm, very solid weight behind him.

“I can’t wait to get you home,” he says, words quiet, low, but hot against James’ ear, “strip you naked and fuck you in the middle of _our living room_ , make you make as much noise as you want-”

James smacks Steve's knee, because the back of a cab isn’t a great place to get a hard-on.

~

They go back to the conversion, because Steve doesn’t have to be at the tower until five, and because they can go in the door - which opens out into the back rooms of the place. 

They walk right up to the nondescript entrance - after Steve has paid the cab fare and a substantial tip - and Steve puts their bags down, because he’s the one carrying most of them.

“Okay,” he says, and nods at the door. “Go ahead.”

James’ eyebrows go right up and his mouth opens, and then he’s smiling as he digs his keys from his coat pocket.

The little chip-key is right there next to everything else - in its protective case, of course, but that won’t hinder the reader and there’s the little sequence of sounds - _beep, be-be-beep,_ \- that Tony programmed in a long time ago ('star-spangled man,' because Tony still isn't as funny as he thinks he is) and the door swings open.

“Oh my God!” James says, and he manages to almost take a step before Steve grabs him.

“Ah-ah!” he says. “Allow me.”

And then he picks James up (with a yelp from James) and carries him inside, to plonk him down just past the door jamb. 

“Ta-da, threshold,” he says. “Okay, now help me with these bags.”

~

After the bags, Steve follows through with the promise he made in the cab. _Boy_ has he ever missed gettin’ time to themselves!

***

It’s getting colder already, and they’re tired but happy by the time lunch is ready in the mid afternoon, and so when Steve makes chicken and roast vegetables in cream sauce with huge dumplings, spiced apple cider, and produces cinnamon buns for dessert, they’re both back in thick pants, shirts and sweaters.

They eat over what feels like hours - it’s certainly more than one. After that, they clear the table together to start getting ready to head for the tower.

Steve’s music tastes haven’t exactly expanded - that’s not really fair. He’s not ready to let go of Christmas just yet, and he has more playlists now. In between the Christmas ‘classics,’ like Jingle Bell Rock and Santa Baby (James) and Adeste Fideles and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing (Steve) are some songs he doesn’t always know, and can’t always place, and some he put in himself, because he likes them, or misses them, and they always mean a lot to him.

James is busy bopping - which is literally what he says when Steve asks. ‘Boppin’’ - to Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, wiggling around the living room because he can dance well, but dancing well isn’t as funny as what he’s doing now. Steve is up to his elbows in the dishes, and James is not allowed to help.

“Oh hey, I know this one,” James says - it’s Billie Holiday, from not too long after Steve crashed. 

He found that pretty difficult, when he’d first been reanimated. All the things he remembered mired in the things that had happened since. But he came to love most of it - the things he’d missed by months or a year or two, as well as the things he’d missed by decades. Steve knows this one, too - loves this one, turns around as he dries his hands on the nearest dishcloth.

 _“I say I’ll move the mountains,”_ because he’s got a good voice and he knows the tune, _“And I’ll move the mountains.”_ He holds a hand out as he crosses the living space, and James looks at him, gone still, arrested by his voice, and lets Steve take his hand. _“If he wants them out of the way.”_

Steve doesn’t dance, not really. Not the Lindy or the Foxtrot or the Charleston. But he can hold someone close, and he can move in time, and swaying together always struck him as better anyhow.

He gathers James up because he can, holds him close and sways them around the living space, and the words come easily from his lips because they’re eighty years old but somehow seem to have been written just for them.

 _“Crazy he calls me,”_ and he keeps his voice soft, _“Sure I’m crazy,”_ soft like the lights in the place, warm like the fire in the fireplace, _“Crazy in love, I’d say.”_

The place is better with two, always was, but it’s different now. Before, he’d been so alone in it that he hadn’t thought about anything but the loneliness. He’d just wanted _someone_ , and it didn’t matter whom. Now, now that he has this, all the sadness and the sorry never feels quite as close. He hesitates to feel that James is a cure for it - a cure does not exist, not for people who’ve seen what Steve has seen. But James is a balm on old wounds, a gentle touch on old anxieties.

He can see James everywhere, just in this short time. He can see the places James will be, too - shelves and countertops and cupboards and floorspaces. There is, Steve hopes, room enough for James. James will, Steve hopes, be happy here. He can come and go as he pleases, he can take time to himself if he needs, but Steve has lived here long enough for it to feel like a home in his head, and he wants the same for James. He hopes the same for James. 

Verse, chorus, bridge, Steve knows the words like muscle memory and they arrive on his lips as they’ve always done. Billie fades away and all that’s left is him and James for a while, warmth and closeness in the home they’ve made.

_“Like the wind, That moves the bough…”_

Time passes by them easily and, sometimes, Steve doesn’t like that at all. Sometimes it’s cold and fast-moving, like a river, impossible to stem. But this, now, he can live with. This is warmth and proximity and the song plays on as though they’ve been plucked from reality and hidden somewhere new and untouched, sequestered away from the cold and the busy world outside.

It feels a lot longer than it is, for certain. They don’t do much, they just stay close and move. And when James puts his head down against Steve’s chest, Steve settles his hands on James’ back. They barely move at all - they don’t need to, not really.

 _"I said I'll care forever, And I'll care forever,"_ and it's easy to give the words when he means them as much as he does. _"If I have to hold back the sky."_

Miss Holiday sang it for recording in forty-nine. He’d been gone four years by then but he found it when he woke, and loved it for it's new-oldness. Something new to him that wasn't brash and jarring like the modern world had been. And, no matter how many digital restorations they do, regardless of how they tweak the sound, this recording carries the same scratch and pop of the records he used to hear waiting for orders, shimmers back off the walls with the same tinny hollowness that he remembers from the wireless Mrs O’Grady had three doors down. Steve feels old in that moment, but not sad. He feels the years that have passed him by but feels, too, that he’s got ones that are still way out ahead of him. 

_"Crazy he calls me."_

He’s come a long way, will go further still, but it’s all right. 

_"Sure, I'm crazy."_

Seven months. All their lives. 

_“Crazy in love am I.”_

**Author's Note:**

> You'd think I'd have some interesting notes here but it's not true. I don't. 
> 
> Here is [a link to a timeline](https://66.media.tumblr.com/aac4be76b217f7b6ea54592e0a76d168/tumblr_inline_pg5mcewTA21rckout_500.png) if you'd like to know the dates of the occurrences in this fic up to part 10, and here is a [a link to the next part of the timeline](https://66.media.tumblr.com/cb64da10fd7e3bf9ece90992c80a6c7f/tumblr_pnkd4q2uSH1s2056to1_500.png) from part 11 to 21.


End file.
